🌵 PRICKLY PEAR for april ☀️
simple, slow, and satisfying - just how we like it. come stitch along with me 💚

i'm beginning with green floss, outlining with back stitch (2 strands), and easing right into it.

next i'm stitching the flowers, using the pink floss and 2 strands to fill the petals with satin stitch.

and then starting to fill in the red sun with [ brick/2 ]

it's important to remember that when using brick stitch to fill a circle like this, the stitches are going to become shorter and shorter with each row that i make. eventually they'll become too small. 

so here's what i decided to do with mine:

i stitched about six rows of brick stitch, then on the seventh row, i made the stitches twice as long as i normally would, then continued on with brick stitch towards the center.

once i reached the almost-center, i added a single star stitch.

and now, i'm making some colonial knots (2 strands) for the spines.

i was considering adding a couple tiny straight stitches to each knot, but i decided to leave it as-is. here it is all finished!