While we were on holiday in my native Holland we visited family and friends, the beach that I used to go to both as a child and as an adult (this time with a force 7 wind blowing), the Keukenhof which was a riot of crocuses rather than the hyacinths and tulips you’d expect mid-April, and a lovely little village called Oud-Zuilen where we delivered an Austin Seven wheel (of course). We also went to the market in my home town, and one stand had some craft materials. Mostly card making and stamping stuff, but suddenly I noticed two metal rings laden with Caron Watercolours! One of the great difficulties when buying online is getting an accurate idea of colours, so being able to see them for myself was lovely, and then on top of that they turned out to be cheaper than here in England. And I’d just been given a belated birthday present by one of my aunts (the other one gave us dinner at our favourite Greek restaurant), so I spent it on some of these lovely threads.

I acquired some less unexpected stash as well; before we left for Holland I’d ordered several fabrics from the Hardanger Atelier, to be sent to my mother’s address, thus saving postage to England. I got some unexciting-but-useful Lugana and Oslo, and two small pieces of other Zweigart fabrics to try out: Colmar, a 25ct which is slightly textured (I’ve used the check version, Colmar Carré, before) and Modena, a 35 or 36ct with an unexpectedly open weave.

I also had time to stitch, and I’d brought the materials for those two Round Dozen variations that I wanted to try. Well, here they are. They are absolutely identical except for the materials – the one on the left uses white DMC perle on white Lugana with Caron Wildflowers (086 Tahiti) for the coloured bits, the one on the right is stitched on maize Lugana with standard DMC perle #8 (353 and 744) and DMC Variations perle #5 (4100). I’ll be using that combination again, those pinks and yellows look so cheerful together! And don’t the two look different; I think you could stitch quite a few birthday cards based on one design before anyone noticed they were all getting “the same one”, as long as you varied your colours!