‘Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.’

This opening line of  Virginia Woolf’s novel, Mrs Dalloway, has many resonances for me.  I think of it every time I have to buy or choose flowers. Although Mrs Dalloway reasons that everyone else is busy so she will buy the flowers, it becomes apparent that the choice of flowers is personal and of deep importance to her. Earlier this summer, I had to choose flowers for the willow casket of my mother-in-law, and spent time thinking about the colours she liked, always reflected in the lovely clothes she wore in so many of the photographs over which we pored through the summer.

When Janine showed me this drawing, I fell in love with it and when it came to choosing the flowers, I decided to stitch an impression of the flowers we chose for Greta. Stitching it was a meaningful time, joyous in a strange way, as I thought about Greta, who was my mother-in-law for nearly all of the forty years I knew her,  constantly as I stitched.  It occurred to me that this kit would be a wonderful thing to stitch as a gift for an occasion involving flowers – perhaps those chosen for a bridal bouquet and wedding flowers, or the flowers grown in a beloved garden.

The finished embroidery takes up most of the width of an A5 frame.

This is not a difficult stitch. As with many of my kits, there is scope for your own creativity: you can choose the flowers, and mix and match the colours as you please. There are sketches and notes for each bucket of flowers, but I have tried to encourage you to ‘play’ with the needle and thread to create impressions of flowers using only variations on Straight stitch and French knots.

The price includes postage and packing to all areas of the United Kingdom. If your order is over £100, it will be tracked automatically, otherwise tracking is not included.