"Thank you so much Carol for such a lovely design, which was a joy to stitch. I stitched it on 40 count Cream linen with one strand of Gloriana 'Cranberry'. If you look closely you may see that my Sew Red is not the same as Carol's original..... Carol designed this especially for 'my friend the mathematician'! She really does spoil me! If that was not enough I then added a change or two (mostly by mistake, I hasten to add) of my own. I did draw the line at leaving out the 'D' in the alphabet - even though I was up to letter 'J' by the time I discovered what I had done! My husband, probably correctly, reckons that I spend more time unpicking than I do stitching!

This is not the finished product! Having got this far, I then wondered what to do with it. By very good fortune I had been given a small wicker tray (full of stitching goodies) for Christmas. It is exactly the correct width for this to lie in the base of it, but needs a bit more stitching each side to complete the rectangle. Carol promptly offered to add a border each side so the design would perfectly fit the tray. How lucky am I to have such a friend?

As for coincidence - who gave me the wicker tray? Why - Carol of course. I look forward to showing you the completed product in due course.

Thank you Carol for sharing your beautiful designs with us - you are a most talented lady.”