Good news on the Frozen Flower front – the smaller of the two is finished, and I have finally succeeded in recharting the larger one so that it looks more or less the way I envisaged it, and is stitchable without having to wield two needles at once, or take your thread through half a dozen woven bars. Once the moving house card and the anniversary sampler are out of the way, it may even get stitched!

I’m all right for birthday cards for the next month or so, having done all those Round Dozen variations recently! This is the last of the lot – well, almost …

I used the cutting pattern of North and the satin stitch motifs from Noon, but with a Queen’s stitch border instead of a four-sided stitch one. This disturbed the balance, so I moved the motifs away from the centre. For decorating the uncut Kloster block squares I chose double cross stitch, but in perle thread rather than stranded cotton or silk, which makes them very 3D and textural, almost like very fat and regular French knots. I’ll certainly use them again!

So why did I say this one was "almost" the last of the variations? Well, as I was charting three of these recent variations, I suddenly thought a spider’s web sort of surface stitch would make a great border too, as long as it’s for a card and not for a coaster. Not quite spider’s web roses or whipped roses, that’s a bit too much texture. So I charted it with a border of large cross stitches woven round, and of course I will now have to stitch it!