I want to be a Tree.... Lockdown Stitch-Along number Two

There used to be an insurance TV advert with that one on... Prudential (I discover from my awesome Google skills and not my poor long term memory).

But last night, after much planning and searching for fabrics etc, we got to start on our second 'lock-down stitch-along' (yeah I know we can leave the house now, but the name kind of stuck with me, and anyway, until we are stitching in each other's houses again, it's still a bit of a lock-down situation).

I had planned to use a blue bit of fabric from a 'craft item of the month club' that my BFF and I were formerly subscribed to, however, on investigation, it would appear that the piece of Aida I had in mind was the same colour as my BFF's unsuitable bit, and thus much too dark for the light sky of the project.  So - white it is, as that I had plenty of in my 'stash', having more often chosen cream as a background for my random projects rather than white.

The start of a new project always brings up an age-old question - where to begin.  Now, I was taught (by my BFF) to always start in the middle (or close to it) - do my readers have any other starting points?  And if so, why do they appeal?  So, looking to the centre of my pattern, I went for the largest single colour I could immediately see close by, which in my case happened to be the first of the trees which form the middle ground of this design.  I got not only the entirety of the darker colour, but a fair amount of the next colour in too (mind you we did stitch way past our normal timings, over-running by 35 minutes, which was delightfully naughty).  Excuse the trailing thread, I fastened in ready to start again next time.

Weather permitting, we intend another walk next week, so the next SAL will be in a fortnight's time - pity, as this pattern has taken both our imaginations and I will miss stitching on it!!

Keep an eye out on my friend's blog at http://apatchworkofcrafts.blogspot.com/ to see quite how differently we deal with the start of this project... it will be interesting to find out when we start to look similar...