Spring Preview

Here in northern California, the past few weeks have been very spring-like. I took these photos of the few cyclamen I have in pots on my deck:


I get a craving for cyclamen in the winter, and when I go shopping for a few plants, I look longingly at all the luscious colors available (red, white, lavender, fuchsia and pink) but I'm always drawn to the same pink ones. I simply can't resist those soft pink petals with the blush of darker pink at their base.


Several years ago, I created a stitched version of these lovely flowers, called (surprise, surprise) PINK CYCLAMEN...


I took a colored pencil drawing I had done of a basket of cyclamen and tent stitched it in the center, and then used it as an excuse to stitch lots of lovely border patterns around it. (I stitched this design on 24 ct. Congress Cloth, a finer type of canvas, with an assortment of #8 pearl cottons and flosses.)

Here's the stitched basket in the center:


I often think, when I look at this piece hanging in my bedroom, that it would also look good stitched just out to the thick scalloped border, and then made into a box pillow.

Anyway, I share these pink cyclamen with you.... just to give all of you in the midst of winter a little preview of spring!