Crewel Friday

I didn't do a whole lot this week. I did get stitched some of the samples I talked about doing last week. I learned a lot. The one shown below is where I did a row of blanket stitch across leaving space for a row of second blanket stitch to fit in across the other side. It was ripped out several times. It's very hard to just the spacing right but more frustrating for me was getting the second row stitches centered in the space. They'd be nicely centered as I made the stitch but as I moved on they'd all shift to one side.Below you can see the reason you're looking at the end of the mini-frame above. When I began doing this larger flower, I realized I needed the fabric to be more taut and so I laced the sides. I won't be taking it out until the flower is done. At the top of the frame below is some shading done with blanket stitch rows.For my pattern I used cut folded paper. I got a design/size I liked and then I glued it to a piece of lightweight card and cut it out. I traced the design in pencil, must more satisfactory than my heavy handed marker lines above. One half of the flower will be blanket stitch (done). The second half will be shaded long and short stitch going from pale yellow to white and just a bit of green toward the center.