Phase 1 Progress ... So Close!

I've been gradually finishing up the pine boughs, bamboo sprouts, pine trees (clouds), and cherry blossoms on my phase 1 piece. Since Mary Alice doesn't have another group lesson till next month, I'm doing a private lesson with Tonie this weekend. She will help me with the last few elements of phase 1.

In the meantime, I finished this second set of pine boughs, just below the first set I did:

I think they look really nice. They are particularly lovely in person. The combination of the flat gold silk with the #1 gold gives them kind of a matte gold finish, which I'm really digging. 

And then I finished the final pine boughs and bamboo sprouts at the bottom of the bamboo stalk:

This completed the main elements along the bamboo stalk. I still need to add the rest of the bamboo stalk itself. And Tonie reminded me that I need to do the stamens on the plum blossoms. Somehow I forgot about those. 😂 They're a little different from the cherry blossom stamens and include knots, so it will be good to get her guidance and tips on those.

I also worked on the right side of the piece. I stitched the final cherry blossom (in 1.5F silk this time for some variety) and completed the second pine tree with couched lattice work:

I did all 16 stamens on this particular cherry blossom. Not gonna lie — it feels like a lot for a flower that is 3/4 of an inch in diameter. But whatever. I think it looks okay. I used my new aficot to help smooth out the flat silk for this flower, and I do think it helped quite a bit. Then I put the stamens in, and they rather pulled the threads apart, but I'm not sure there's any getting around that.

And lastly, I finished the final pine tree. This one had vein lines couched in #1 silver:

I think my holding stitches were a little better this time, and none of my vein lines sank in between the foundation threads, so I was reasonably pleased with the outcome. All I have left to do on this right side is couch the gold lines for the sky. Tonie will help me with that as well. Here's everything I've done so far:

I think it's looking really lovely overall. The right side feels a little too monochrome to me currently, but the skylines will be in gold, so I'm hoping that will brighten it up a bit. Can't wait to see what it looks like finished!