Phase 3: Paulownia Buds

I have had almost no time for embroidery lately. 😭 In my last post, I mentioned two big life changes that have been taking up all my time. One was a job search; the other was a house hunt. I didn't intentionally plan to do these at the same time. It just sort of happened that way. Both are rather monumental tasks all on their own. But the two combined, together with the busy season at work, has made for an exhausting affair.

However, I'm happy to report that the job search was successful, and I'm working out the last few days at my current job. I will take a short break to recover from all the recent stress and fatigue and then will start my new job at the end of the month. 

Alas, the house hunt has not been quite as successful, though not for lack of trying. The market these days ... yeesh. But the new job gives me a lot more options, so I'm hoping to have good news on the house front sometime soon.

But for now, I will show you the teensy amount of embroidery I did this last Sunday. I worked on the paulownia buds that branch out above the paulownia leaves on my fan. These tiny buds are typically done in white on Hiogi. However, when I googled paulownia buds, they were always a light tan or wheat color, never white. I'm not sure why they're usually stitched in white, but that doesn't go with my color scheme, so I decided to just stitch them in the light golden wheat color that I've used elsewhere in this piece (e.g., the shippo and the cords).

The buds are stitched very similarly to plum blossoms. The first step is to do some padding on the top half of the bud. This can be done using cotton padding or self-padding. I decided to do self-padding because it was less hassle. I just did a few tiny padding stitches in a 4-->1 soft twist:

Then for the top layer, I stitched perpendicular to the padding stitches, starting in the center of the bud and working towards one side. Then I went back to the center and stitched to the other side, keeping my stitches parallel to each other, just as you do with plum blossoms:

I think they look pretty nice. And that, I'm afraid, is all I accomplished on Sunday. 😂 I really have been so tired. And Japanese embroidery isn't something you can work on very effectively when you're tired or stressed.

But to make up for my lack of progress, I will show you a tantalizing picture of everything I've accomplished so far:

It's still all covered up, of course, but it gives you an idea. Hopefully during my short break, I'll find a little more energy to work on it. I really do love this piece. I just need more time and strength to do it justice. Hopefully soon!