Cover Story - Umbel Pie

Two definitions
UMBEL a cluster of small flowers on short spreading stems that come from the same point and form a shape similar to an open umbrella:.
PIE a confused mass of printers' type; leading to pie – a food dish with miscellaneous contents

I'm fascinated by umbelliferous flowers - on fabric, in the fields...I have a favourite teatowel and a skirt  decorated with these blossoms.

And recently I picked up an Indian Woodblock in a CS. 

It became my inspiration for the July stitching, although I did not want to get ink on it!

So I traced the design, then found some sky blue polycotton. I taped the tracing paper to the window, with the fabric on top, then copied the umbel with a vanishing pen. 
Firsty I stitched horizontal running stitch lines in a variegated blue/white perlé thread. Then the sun in a golden shade. Next, two shades of green for the grass - lightest at the foreground, and darkest at the horizon, and alternating rows of running stitch in between. Finally black backstitched stems, and each ended with a French knot.

A Norfolk summer skyline...