Long and Short Flower on Midori Purse

Once I got home to Arizona, I stuck to my schedule of stitching a couple hours each week. It's astonishing how much progress one can make with brief but regular stitching sessions.

I first worked on the far right flower, which I was stitching in long and short stitch. This flower was also irregularly shaped, so I decided to do it petal by petal, beginning in the center of the far left petal:

 I worked my way to the right, alternating long and short stitches and trying to vary the length:

I came back and did the same thing on the left side, again starting in the center and moving outward:

I repeated the process on petal two:

Petal three:

And petal four:

Once I completed the first color for all four petals, I moved onto the second color—a shade darker—and repeated the same process, but I came up at the bottom and stitched down into the first row so as not to fray the silk. I varied the lengths of stitches and where they were buried in the silk as much as possible, and I think it  turned out rather well:

I repeated that process for the third color—a much darker shade this time—and blended and angled toward the center:

For the very bottom, I used white for contrast:

And then I added some yellow to create little stamens:

I really like how this one turned out. I think it looks reasonably realistic, and in person, it's even prettier. Here's my progress up to this point:

I still had a lot to do, but this was an inspiring piece to work on, so I really didn't mind sticking to a regular schedule.

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