Whan That Aprille Cross Stitch Kit

Whan That Aprille Cross Stitch KitAt Oak Park River Forest High School in Oak Park, Illinois, my beloved junior year English teacher, Mr. Don Rehkopf, had us memorize the first eighteen lines of The Prologue to The Canterbury Tales in Middle English. I still feel compelled to recite them out loud to anyone who will listen every spring. This is how it starts: Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote The droghte of March hath perced to the roote, And bathed every veyne in swich licour,

At Oak Park River Forest High School in Oak Park, Illinois, my beloved junior-year English teacher, Mr. Don Rehkopf, had us memorize the first eighteen lines of “The Prologue” to The Canterbury Tales in Middle English. I still feel compelled to recite them out loud to anyone who will listen every spring. This is how it starts:

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour.

— Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, 1387-1400

Did you memorize this, too? I took a survey of basically every single person in my phone a few months ago and said, "Do you know what 'What That Aprille' means?" All the English majors knew and almost to a person they, too, say it out loud every spring! (My high-school friend Maggie and her husband Dave both know it so they recite it in tandem to their college-aged children. HA!) Literally no one who wasn't an English major did (except for Andy, because I read the entire Prologue out loud to him the day before). The whole prologue so cool! I love A.S. Kline’s translation. You can find it at poetryintranslation.com. It’s so much fun to read.

This piece is stitched on 32-count linen (that's 16 stitches per inch) with two-plies of DMC six-ply cotton embroidery floss.

Finished size of design area: 6"w x 8"h (15cm x 20cm); 96 stitches wide x 128 high on 32-count fabric

This kit contains:

• One 14" x 16" (36cm x 41cm) piece of 32-count evenweave linen from Wichelt in Natural Brown Undyed
  
• (29) 24" (61cm) lengths of various colors of DMC 6-ply cotton embroidery floss
• One skein DMC 6-ply cotton embroidery floss in color #3371
• Stitching instructions
• Color cross-stitch chart with symbols
• One piece of chipboard for creating a floss organizer

You will need:

• #24 tapestry needle(s) for cross stitch
• Embroidery scissors
• 4" (10cm) embroidery hoop
• Frame and framing supplies

To learn how to do counted cross stitch, please click here.

For help with framing your finished piece yourself, please click here.