Happy Baby Dance and a small start

I finished and framed the ABC Sampler for my friend's baby this week and here it is:

The design was in Cross Stitcher magazine issue 249.  The original design was by an illustrator Elissa Hudson and was charted by an anonymous person for the magazine (I couldn't see a credit anyway!).  I stitched it on 32count white evenweave using the recommended DMC.  I moved several of the letters and motifs around so I could fit in the baby's name and that of his big sister.  This was a lovely quirky stitch, being able to do one or two letters a session made progress seem rather fast.  There was a thick plain turquoise border all around but it would have taken at least a week to stitch if not more and frankly - life's too short to stitch straight lines in one colour!

I have given the sampler to baby's Mum and she loved it, as did Big Sis.  Baby not so sure LOL.  But he is only 17 weeks old. 

This is the new start:

When Madame Muriel arrived she came bearing gifts, one of which was this delightful Blackbird Designs chart.  I'm stitching it on 28count evenweave which I've tea-dyed.  I'm using the DMC conversion they gave but may change the colours of some of the scattered flowers so they show up more on this fabric.

I also stitched another one of my back-stitch only flower cards.  This is July's Delphinium or Larkspur:

Question - which name would you use?  Delphinium or Larkspur?  Either name is right but which is more widely used?  Delphiniums always remind me of the AA Milne poem about the Dormouse and the Doctor.

Finally, another postcard was sent out in the Summer Postcard Blog Hop.  Julie's card went to Julie!!  Julie Bagpuss to Julie and Yes Dear that is.

Here's a full list of links so far:

First Postcard sent to Grasp the Stars
Jennifer's postcard sent to Tales of a Stitching Mouse
Mouse's card sent to The Southpaw Stitcher
Southpaw's card sent to Julie's Stitchy Knitter Journal
Julie's card sent to Julie and Yes Dear
Julie (and Yes Dear)'s card to go where......?

There are plenty more postcards to go out and still lots of time to join in.  Just click on the link to the right and read the rules first!