Plum Blossom Progress

My work on my plum blossoms was halted by a very busy work week. Not until Thursday could I do anything at all on them, and then I only half-finished the third blossom:

I did this one in the same blend of 3/4 dark pink and 1/4 light pink thread that I had done the second blossom in. On Friday night, I summoned up a little energy to finally finish it:

It was coming along nicely, but on Saturday, between house cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, bathing my dog Beau, and attending pottery class with my mom, I was too exhausted to do anything more on it. JE requires enough concentration that I can't generally do it when I'm tired. 

And really, they don't recommend it. They say any stress and fatigue will come out in the embroidery. I don't entirely believe this, as I find it can sometimes be a nice stress reliever. I do, however, find fatigue to be a hindrance.

But today was far more productive. I had nothing at all to do this morning but JE, so in short order, I completed the fourth plum blossom:

For this one I went back to using only dark pink thread. I wanted to give a nice mix of the darker and lighter colors. Technically, I was supposed to do the fifth and final plum blossom next, but I confess I was feeling a little weary of them, so I decided to do some more Japanese knot clouds next. 

I had started running out of the medium green thread after I finished the first three leaves, so I did the top three rows on the right in the light green thread and the row below it and the row to the left in a blend of the light and medium green threads, to try to save the medium green thread for the remaining leaves:

They were turning out all right, but I hesitated to do anymore because I was so short on medium green thread. When I first realized how little I had left a week or two ago, I contacted Mary Alice to see if she had any more of the same color on hand. She does stock Midori colors and obligingly sent me the thread that same day. But when it arrived, I discovered that either it was from a very different dye lot or that Midori has altered her colors since she made up my kit:

As you can see, they are drastically different. I far prefer the original one that came with the kit. It's a much softer, more subtle shade of green. The new one is so much brighter that I really didn't think it would go with this piece. A little stymied, I decided to go back to the last plum blossom while I thought things over:

I did this final one in all dark pink thread again. And really, I'm very happy with the plum blossoms. They're not perfect, but they're pretty, and from a distance of even a foot or two, there aren't really any noticeable, or at least no glaring, errors.

After thinking it over, I decided to finish the Japanese knot clouds by trying to incorporate some of the new #97 thread, just to see how it looked. I blended 1/2 a strand with 1 1/2 strands of light green for a few rows on the left, and then I did the lower few rows entirely in the bright green:

Alas, I wasn't very pleased with the result. I think it's far too bright and contrasting, and I plan on taking out those lower three rows of knots and just using either the dark green or the light green, which I think may blend in better, as they're also more subtle shades. 

But first, I contacted Mary Alice to see if she had any suggestions. She said Midori had changed her factory where she does her color soaking and told me to send her what I had left of the medium green and she would see if she had anything on hand to match it. So I'm going to try that. 

I dearly hope she does have a good match. If not, I will somehow have to figure out how to do the remaining two leaves using the light green, dark green, and the very small amount of medium green I have left. I'm a bit at a loss as to how to manage that. But perhaps an ingenious solution will present itself. For now, though, this project will be on hold again. 

It's very frustrating, as I have Thursday and Friday off this week and had hoped to finish up this whole piece then. But there's just nothing else I can really do until I get some more thread. I want it to be right if at all possible. I will only settle if there's no other option.