My Darling Edward,

You do think of the most original presents; whoever thought of sending anybody three French hens?  Do they really come all the way from France?  It's a pity that we have no chicken coops, but I expect we'll find some.  Thank you, anyway, they're heaven.
Your loving Emily

12 Days of Christmas (Correspondence) - John Julius Norwich

I have finished the lettering on the 3rd block of Joan Elliott's 12 Days of Christmas:

I also stitched for another day on the top left angel:

Here is the whole piece so far:

You can see that I have started the long red outer border.  Once that is completed there is a row of metallic on either side of it.  All the way round the outside!

Once I finished all the SALs for the month I turned to my focus piece.  A new start with a deadline.  Remember the Nora Corbett Letter Fairies I stitched last year for my cousins' children?  Well, my younger cousin had another baby on New Year's Eve so we need another initial!

I took that photo to ask for advice on the Mira board.  The outline of the M is Crescent Colours Smoke and the variegated fill-in colour is Dark Fennel.  The charted colour for the rest of the fill-in is Lettuce Leaf, which you can see on the left.

You can see that looks nothing like the cover photo and doesn't go at all with the dress either.

So I used a blend of 927 and 928 DMC, which looks lovely in real life.  The colours are not coming out true at all tonight.

Honestly, the fabric looks grey there!  It is really green, Sunlit Heath from Crafty Kitten.

These stitch up so quickly, especially when you park yourself down and focus for three days!  I did do some FFO'ing this afternoon but I can't show you yet as it's a gift.  I also figured out my solution to Kerry's Theme-tas-stitch for March so you'll see that on the 21st.

We had our second interview of the Blogger of the Week blog.  Pop over there to read more about the lovely blogger featured this week and make sure you visit her personal blog too.

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Finally, we are approaching the Easter Holidays which means only one things - Chocolate Eggs!  

NO - Easter Blog Hops!  As usual I will be hosting an Easter Blog Hop with a Treasure Hunt for the Mystery Phrase.  Provide your own eggs!  If you would like to take part this year, just leave a comment here.  The week before Easter I will send you a letter of the alphabet which will form part of the mystery phrase.  On Good Friday you will post that letter along with a photo of something seasonal that you have stitched (could be Easter or Spring or just something cheerful and sunny or floral).  We all hop around like little bunnies to find the Mystery Phrase!

Here's a link to last year's hop so you can see how it all works - Easter Treasure Hunt Blog Hop 2016