Californica 2023- March Milk Maids

For March I'm working on the Cardamine californica flower also known as milk maids.

Milk maids are described as being raceme inflorescence, which means that the stalk keeps growing and new flowers keep growing on the stalk above the last set. A good example of this type of flower is snapdragons. You can see the buds of the next set of flowers above the bloomed flowers in the picture below which also helps understand this term. With that said each flower of a milk maid is about ½ inch in diameter with four white to pink petals.

Because my base fabric (also known as ground fabric) is white, I think I'll do the pink variation of the flowers. When I google pink versions of Cardamine californica, the petals look more purple than red to me. 

(This picture is not mine: it's from iNaturalist. You can find it here.)
 

Like the California poppy, the milk maids close up before night and rain. So sweet! I know it's to protect their pollen, but I still find it sweet!

Here's the plan:

Colors: DMC white/blanc/白, 310, 554, 702, 725, 890/895

Buds (A): Straight Stitch- 2 strands 702 with one bud getting petals (follow the instructions for petals) and two buds get stems done in stem stitch in 702

Petals (B): Satin Stitch- 2 strands of white and 1 strand of 554

Anthers (C): French Knots- 3 strands of 725

Stem (D): Stem Stitch- 2 strands of 895 on the bulk of the stem but 2 strands of 702 under the leaf on the left side

Leaves (E): Fishbone Stitch- 2 strands of 702

Name: Backstitch- 2 strands of 310

Box: Split stitch- 2 strands of 310, but maybe you want to save this for after you've completed more months to get a nice even stitch across months...

  Stitching Guide:

Reference Photo:

This picture is not mine; it's Timothy Boomer's. You can find it here.