Leaf SAL and August Weather

August in Brisbane was windy. Very windy. The wind blew all the washing off the line on Monday.  Pehaps that's a reminder to use the pegs. We had a few days of dust storms too, when the skies were pink from morning till night with the dust blown in from the inland desert areas. You could taste the dry dust in the air, even inside the house. A little rain is forecast for the weekend. I hope it arrives.

My leaf SAL is almost done. The leaf of chain and French knots was one leaf that went fairly quickly -

once I'd settled on the colours. With each new leaf choosing the colours became more of a challenge. One consideration was that I wanted to avoid having clumps of a single colour all congregated in one small area of the embroidery. Sometimes the colours I had planned just didn't look right so I unpicked and changed them. 

Deviating from the suggested scroll stitch as an outline for my next leaf, I chose Portuguese knotted stem instead. Up close, I really like the way the knot pulls the two threads together and almost looks like a rope. For tying down the lattice filling I wanted the crosses to stand out. Eventually I took out the contrasting pink and settled on a close matching colour after all.

My final leaf is filled with interwoven cross.

What I found interesting while working on the SAL is that stitches that looked uninspiring to me when paging through stitch dictionaries, turned out to be quite intriguing when I stitched them. Interwoven cross was one of them. Doing that last little tug on the thread and seeing how the threads entwined was rather satisfying. But also, the random sprinkling of the crosses as a filling stitch reminded me at times of a star-studded sky, and at other times, a sparkling field of wild flowers. Interwoven cross is a pretty little filling stitch.

My goal of twenty leaves is done. I'll make up a cushion cover once I find a cushion inner and know what size to make it.

In case you're wondering about that big frame, it's a quilting frame. I used it only to stretch out and smooth the wrinkles in the embroidery so I could photograph it before it's been washed and ironed.

Thinking of the weekend and some spring rain reminds me that the pelargonium and the bromeliad in this pot suddenly sprang into bloom. Longer days and warmer weather is definitely on the way here. 

'Till next time, happy stitching!