Sometimes you want to stitch, but you don’t want to have to think too much. And for me, that generally means stitching someone else’s design, because my own pretty much always end up as chart packs, kits or workshops so that every step of the stitching process needs to be logged in notes and photographs, and every design element and material checked for repeatability. So I have a number of kits which are tucked away in my craft room, patiently awaiting the day when they will finally be picked up and stitched – kits by wonderful designers like Alison Cole, Helen Richman of Bluebird Embroidery, Heather Lewis and Helen Stevens.

But sometimes even that is too much; because let’s face it, these are quite challenging projects! And then, leafing through a back issue of Stitch Magazine I came across a crewel design by Alex Law, a modern take on a Jacobean tree of life in bright citrussy colours. And on the tree – a pear…

A very small pear, a mere 3cm high, but such a satisfying shape, and such lovely stitches: shaded laid work, a lattice, an outline, all in green with some yellow shaded in, and a tiny orange stalk. I couldn’t resist. I hooped up a scrap of sateen, picked some of my favourite Heathway Milano crewel wools – not quite a colour match for the original Appleton’s wools but with the same bright citrus look – and got stitching at our monthly Cake & Craft meeting. Initial progress was not as fast as it might have been as I managed to start with the wrong green, but that didn’t spoil the fun.

In my off-duty mood I didn’t use my trusty maths triangle to get the lattice perfectly aligned, but just eyeballed it. It turned out a little diamond-shaped rather than square, but I actually quite liked the look of that as it echoes the elongated shape of the pear. To round it all off I added three tiny orange stitches at the bottom, to balance the stalk at the top, and then it was time to photograph the finished fruit. It always amazes me what a difference lighting makes! In this case direct sunlight (left) versus daylight without direct sun (right).

I’m not sure what will happen to this little pear; at the moment I just like looking at it . And my next stitching project? Little bits of this and that, for now. But although I am not stitching a lot, I am developing some ideas for when stitching bug, concentration and energy coincide again, and for one of them I have just ordered a couple of fabric samples – of shimmery, sheer organza. Now what could that become…?