M is for... mandolin?

Here's my progress on M is for Mother, for my mother. It's pretty fast to stitch and quite fun too, though I wouldn't have put some of the colours together and some of the 'speciality' stitches seem a bit pointless. There are two lots of Marking stitch that just come out looking like regular cross stitch. Interesting to know what they are and how they were used (to label linen) but not very attractive on their own. I know my mum will like it though and that's the point!