The Purple Ornament Progresses!

This ornament has been very entertaining to stitch, as by doing it on bare white canvas, I can see color marching along like a child with a coloring book - my preference when working on my own designs.

Anyway, it's coming to life and taking shape. The arrow is pointing to where I filled in the gap between the leaves with T-stitch, which is a simple matter, but does require a bit of thought and attention. I don't usually like textured stitches on backgrounds, as they do get a little messy around design, but in this case, the stitch is so small scaled, it didn't interfere visually.

The second picture is a detail, showing (where the arrows point) the fact that the outlining of the flowers is accomplished by stitching across the tops, and then separately, across the bottoms - much easier and more efficient.

More flowers are outlined in the third image, and the arrows are showing the direction of the tent stitch outline. This is one place I "break the rule" and turn the canvas so as to make the tent stitches stay smoothly oriented instead of letting them "sawtooth" (which is typically the look of needlepoint). It simply makes a smoother, neater edge for finishing, and keeps the textured background stitches confined and not ragged looking. This is simply a matter of switching direction about halfway across the straight edges at the top, bottom, and sides. Very simple.

The arrow pointing to the bottom of the flower on the left shows the progression of stitching across the bottoms of the flowers for the outlines.

With the fourth color begun and more color on the flowers with the centers and leaves, it's really looking fine!!

This is what makes me keep going rather than abandoning the whole project! Now for filling in the flowers, where I'll use Petite Frosty Rays and Flair - the rest is in DMC cotton for the matte look I wanted, and the Satin Floss for the centers for some shine. More tomorrow (maybe, if I don't get sidetracked) There is still the red one with the PVV and beads! Also, I hear the Mindy With Beads project calling.