Summer Stitches

First, thank you so much for all your comments on my slow cooker post. Your hints and tips are very useful and much appreciated, all of them. Also, thanks for the fantastic response to the giveaway - it's now closed and I'll announce a winner on Saturday. But, in the mean time... I can finally show you my Summer Stitches embroidery. I feel both relieved and sad to have completed the last quarter of this seasonal series of mine. (You can see my Spring, Autumn and Winter hoops if you like by clicking on the links.) I really struggled to get motivated with this one but then, as is so often the way, once I got going I became engrossed and didn't want it to end. 

The tree, the anchor in each picture, is in full leaf. I was in French knot heaven here!

I had enormous fun sewing these hollyhocks...

...and this lilac. Or it could be buddleia, I'm not really sure to be honest.

My favourite part is these sunflowers.They were a joy to sew. 

One of the things I most like about embroidery is it's tactile nature, and you can see how much texture the different elements have. 

Here they are, lined up in a row. This is not the best way to display them, but I just wanted to show you.

For now I've hung them vertically on a pillar between our dining room and play room. It's not the best place, and I do think they'd look better hung in a square, but it'll do for now. The nice thing about hanging them here is how often I see them, since it's a part of the house we're all in all the time. 

I love them! Of course I do, how could I not? I really enjoyed putting as much colour into my summer hoop as I could, but I think my favourite might be Winter, the least colourful of them all. Or maybe Spring, I don't know.

Do you have a favourite one?