Small Jacobean Flowers

Work has been very busy lately. I have had very little time or energy for anything else. Every time I think I've finally gotten it all done, another report comes in. Sigh. But I did manage to embroider two small flowers on my Jacobean piece this last weekend. 

I decided to embroider the first one, and the larger of the two, in peach tones, as it lay between two leaves already embroidered in cooler blues. I wanted a touch more warmth for that area of the piece. I started by doing some long and short stitch in the palest peach:

I finished off those four sections by blending in the medium peach shade, again in long and short stitches:

I was liking this really well up to this point. Next up was the outer petal for those four petals. I considered blending the dark peach in using long and short stitches, instead of keeping it as a separate section of the flower, but when I tried it on one petal, I didn't like it at all. So I did the four outer petals in basic satin stitch in dark peach and the center in satin stitched yellow:

At this point, I began to regret all my life decisions. 😂 The effect was very different with that dark peach added, and I wasn't really loving it. But I didn't know what else to do with this little flower. So I decided to press on and try to incorporate more of the two lighter shades of peach to try to balance things out a bit:

I used stem stitch on all the outlines, but for the vein down each leaf, I used outline stitch, which is very similar. I thought this softened the dark peach quite a bit, but it was almost too much. So I tried adding a very thin additional outline in split stitch using the dark peach:

I think it looks better with that additional outline on just the four leaves, but I confess I still have some misgivings about that dark peach color when contrasted with the two leaves. It feels a little too stark to me, but I had such a hard time doing anything with this flower to begin with that I decided to leave it for now. If after completing a little more of the piece I still don't like it, I can always take it out and redo it, as I have many a time before.

Since my embroidery time has been so limited, I decided to press on and do the little flower above and to the left of this peach one, to finish off this whole stem:

As you can see, I did this one in cooler colors again (because that dark peach really is quite intense). I satin stitched the leaves in a delicate greenish blue and then did the same to the flower center in yellow. I overlaid the center of the flower with some couched lattice work in my periwinkle color. 

For the petals, I did some padding in the main periwinkle color, added a few darker periwinkle lines over the padding, and then began to satin stitch around them and over the padding in the main color again. When I finished, the darker lines didn't really show up, so I went over them one more time. Here's the final result of my padded satin stitch:

I like it reasonably well. I think the darker color gives the flower a bit of depth, and it's a cute little bud of a flower. But while I like it on its own, I'm not so sure I like as part of the larger picture. Here's the whole piece so far so you can see those two flowers in context:

I'm feeling really unsure about both the peach and the periwinkle now. Maybe if I used only the two softer shades of peach, it would be better? Maybe if I took out the periwinkle entirely (since I already have the other cool blues), that would be better? I just don't know. 😕

Up to this point, I was happy with my color scheme, but now I'm having serious doubts. Still, I have so little time to embroider (and so little energy when I do have time) that I hate to keep taking everything out. So I've decided to just keep going (unless or until a brilliant solution presents itself to me). I'm hoping that as I move along, the path forward will become clearer and I'll be able to tell what's working and what's not and make everything in this piece work together.

If anyone out there instinctively knows what the issue is, or thinks they do, I'm open to suggestions. Right now, in looking at it again, I think the issue may be the combination of the dark peach and periwinkle. What was a very subtle, elegant color scheme before I did these two flowers has somehow turned out looking a little too much like a crayon box. I think it needs toning down. 

And then ... as I look at it again, there's this feeling that has been plaguing me all along about that dark peach. Does it, perhaps, look a trifle orange to you?