Californica 2023- April California Bush Sunflowers

For April I'm working on the Encelia californica also known as California bush sunflowers or brittlebush.

Bush sunflowers are in the daisy family. They have 15 to 25 bright yellow ray florets which are 1/2 - 1 inch long around a center of protruding yellowish to purplish brown disk florets. They are native to coastal So Cal and Baja California. While it is drought resistant, it does go dormant in the hot summer months. I like its bright cheery yellow petals and the disk florets.

I love the bee in the photo, and while I'm not sure, I think it is a carpenter bee. I like to think the bee is a Xylocopoides californica. One more californica!!!

Here's the plan:

Colors: DMC 307, 310, 415, 823, 3371

Petals [Ray florets] (A): Woven Picot Stitch- 3 strands of 307 (If you don't want to do a woven picot, I'd suggest a satin stitch since that will go nicely with the previous months.)

Disk & Disk florets (B): French knots- 3 strands 3371 of for the main disk and 2 strands of 307 for the disk florets

Bee body (C): 2 strands of 310 and 1 strand of 823

Bee wings (D): 2 strands of 310 and 1 strand of 415

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... 

Here is the final version of the month.