Serendipitous Jo's April's Four Calling Birds

I'm following the 12 Days theme using Joan Elliott's 12 Days of Christmas design.  Here is the Fourth block:

Because there is a lot of dense stitching in this design, I have made a small change.  All the backgrounds are stitched with just one strand instead of two.  It is most obvious on the full coverage parts like the Angels and the Pear Tree but you can see that it works well here.

I also decided to make the berries as over one stitches instead of French Knots.  I tried the knots on the Second Day and didn't like them so I unpicked them and redid them as tiny crosses.  Much neater and just as effective.

Here's where the piece was last month:

And here's where we are now:

I finally completed all the red outer border and have stitched the double metallic rows on the top.  Now I'm going to start on the holly vine inside the top border.  Just for a change from straight lines!