Continuing Maple Leaves

I continued my work on my maple leaves over the last couple of days. I decided to do the second leaf in two strands of flat silk (2F), as Mary Alice suggested, to make it recede a bit behind the first leaf. I did decide to attempt some silk shading with it as well. I started with 2F of a darker green and then for the next section, I used one strand of the dark green and one strand of the medium green together to begin blending with long and short stitches:

This could probably be done better, but I wasn't sure it could be done better by me, so I added the third section of 2F in the medium green:

At this point, I felt like I'd done the best I could do and decided to put in the vein lines for both leaves at once, using the stitch transfer method:

This time, I tried gently but firmly poking the tekobari along the lines of stitching until the paper tore. It came away much easier using this tip and I ended up with pretty clean stitch lines:

They're a bit hard to see because I used gold silk couching thread, which blends in a bit with the lighter green especially, but they turned out to be good guidelines for adding the Japanese gold #1 thread:

I used a technique called a line of held thread to put in these vein lines. Here they are are completed:

It was a very nice surprise to discover that the vein lines rather softened the look of my long and short stitches and made them look a little more blended. I was really pretty happy with the look of these.

Because I still had some stitches longer than a centimeter on the far right side of the second leaf, I did my first attempt at short-stitch holding, which involves stitching diagonal lines with 1 -> 2 thread (or 8 suga -> 1 thread; same thing really) over the stitches to hold them down. I used the same color thread, which was pretty fine, so it's kind of hard to spot them here:

I used a tightly twisted thread and then later read more closely and discovered it should be a loosely twisted thread. But oh well, they're so invisible, I think it doesn't really matter.

Moving right along, I decided to do the third leaf in an overall shade somewhere between the color of the first two leaves. But because of the direction of the vein lines, I didn't want to use weft foundation. If I had, the vein lines would have probably gotten lost in the green stitching, as they did on my last project (which I redid for that reason). So once again, I decided to do a horizontal foundation (horizontal to the direction of the leaf). But this is a bit trickier to keep even, so I used a white pencil to mark in some guidelines for myself:

I accidentally went outside the leaf pattern lines on the last guideline on the right, but I just slightly adjusted the shape of the leaf to cover it up. Using these guidelines helped so much, and I think it turned out pretty well:

The last step was to add the gold vein lines, which once again helped to soften my blending:

I'm really very happy with the look of these. No doubt there are some issues and someone more experienced than I could do better. But for my second JE piece and my first piece using twisted threads and blended colors, I couldn't be more pleased. I think this is such a pretty pattern. And I love the colors so far.

Up next are the plum blossoms. Which means I get to start using the loveliest shade of pink! I think it will make a beautiful contrast with the bright greens. I've already started twisting some threads so I can start on the flowers tomorrow:

Isn't it a beautiful color? I used a slightly looser twist on these threads than the ones for the leaves, as I think my twist on those may have been a smidge tighter than it should have been. The book said a medium twist, and I didn't have a very good idea of what that should be at first. But Tonie sent me this cute little taped-up package containing sesame seeds, a grain of rice, and an adzuki bean:

Apparently, when you check the twist on your thread, the loop at the bottom of the twist should be about the size of the sesame seed for a tight twist, the size of the grain of rice for a medium twist, and the size of the adzuki bean for a loose twist. What a clever way of describing it! Though, if I've understood this accurately, twisted thread is typically much looser than I thought it was or was doing myself.

Both of my books said to roll the thread up the right hand four times for the undertwist and three up the left for the overtwist. I was doing two times for the undertwist and once for the overtwist and getting almost no loop at the base of my twist, or only a very tiny one, which would seem to indicate a pretty tightly twisted thread. But I was only twisting it half as much as the books suggested, so I think it should have turned out much looser. I may need to check with one of my teachers to figure out where the discrepancy is coming from. 

Anyway, I tried to loosen up these pink threads, though the loops still may not be quite as large as the grain of rice. But that's okay. This is a good piece to experiment on and learn what effect the different twists have when stitched, so I will try a few different variations.

As you might be able to tell, I'm working through this second piece much more quickly than the first piece. I think this is due to two reasons. First, it's addicting! The more I do it, the more I enjoy it and want to spend more time on it. And second, the more I do it, the more confident I get and the easier it becomes, so it goes a little faster. Both my teachers are constantly saying "Time equals skill." And certainly, I have to take out fewer stitches than I did on my first piece, which is a huge relief! So onwards and upwards, forward ho, and all that. Next up, plum blossoms!