I've finally started the actual embroidery on my Jacobean piece! I began by doing some long-and-short shading in the bottom element and some shaded stem stitch on the main stem:
I like the L+S on the base element. It turned out reasonably consistent and beautifully smooth. I also like the lower portion of the main stem. I did two rows on each edge in a slightly darker shade to give the stem a more three-dimensional look.
As I worked the stem, I adjusted the pattern line slightly because it was a bit too thick in the middle and not quite wide enough near the base. I like it much better this way than how I'd originally drawn it, and I was very pleased with how easy it was to adjust since I'd used the stitch transfer method. I just snipped the thread from the stitch transfer and pulled it out. No fuss, no muss!
Next, I did my first goldwork (in silver) around the base element. I stretched some silver pearl purl about 50% and then took a very dark blue 6-stranded piece of floss in the same color family I'd used so far and wound it around the pearl purl. Then I couched the whole thing down with some translucent couching thread coated in beeswax. This took a while, but I really like it. It's a delicate touch, but lovely:
But the more I looked at the piece, the less happy I was with the top part of the main stem. My stitching wasn't terribly even and with the much narrower stem, having two lines of darker stem stitch on each side was too much:
I grumbled and groaned and put it aside for a day. And then I went back and took it all out and did it again:
I just did one line of darker stem stitch on each side, plus a tiny bit extra on the lower left side, and I worked hard to make neater stitches. It looks so much better. I hate taking out stitches. But I really couldn't live with it before.
Once I had done that, I decided it was time to move on to my second color family: a periwinkle shade of blue. I started with some whipped stem stitch on a small element off the base of the main stem:
It was okay, but my stitches were a little uneven, and it was a bit loose near the base of the stem. This isn't a great photograph because I'd loosened the tension on the frame a bit, and the light wasn't good. But I knew it wasn't quite right. So yet again, I took it all out and redid it:
Once again, better the second time. Sometimes it really is worth taking something out if you know you can do better. If you know you can't do any better, well, that's a different story. But in this case I knew I could. Here's what I've done so far:
It's not much, but it's a good beginning. I haven't had as much time to work on it as I'd like because I've also got my JE project going. But I kind of need that sort of variety since I have a tendency to get bored easily. Time enough to work on both of them.
But I have to take a break for a bit because Fantasy Football is starting up soon. My draft is tomorrow, and I need to do some more research. I can't end up with those clowns who gave me a dismal fourth-place finish last year. I am better than that! POODLEattack is better than that! (That's my team name; it's funnier if you work in cybersecurity like I do.) But I will have more embroidery updates soon.
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