Autumn Leaves Wedding Pillow - Leaves 1 & 2

Thanks to all of you who commented on the last post.  It was a clear vote - one project at a time.

So, here's the first of a series of photo heavy posts showing most of the process of shading the leaves, then the numbering and then finally the whole piece made up.  Some stages didn't get photographed very much, so there are a few gaps, but I'm sure there's enough to get the idea. ☺

As it takes such a long time to choose, edit and upload the photos in order, (which is something that puts me off blogging a lot these days....), I'll be keeping text to a minimum - just the stuff that really adds something to the understanding of the project.

Let's make a start on leaves numbers one and two.

At this point I felt that the leaf veins were too heavy.  I'd been working them in the same thread as the shading was done - one strand of Madeira Silk, but it just seemed to overpower the leaves, especially the yellow and orange one.  Whilst walking up the road, I picked up a couple more leaves to have a look at the gauge of the leaf veins in nature and so decided to change to one strand of sewing cotton instead.

First came the delicate task of unpicking the original stitches, which wasn't easy!

Then came the re-stitching of the veins.  I know they're not a great deal finer, but, if nothing else, I got a chance to alter the colours and make the veins more curved and less stick-like.

Next time: Leaves three and four. ☺

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2017