Doodle Stitching - WIP Before Dawn

It has been a great week, for many reasons, but partly because I have spent more time stitching than I have in a long time and have made great progress on my little doodle piece since I showed you the piece last week. This is where it was at:

BEFORE DAWN - work in progress

Since then I have stitched hundreds of tiny French knots (no I am not counting, just guessing) and filled in two of the three remaining dots...

I used chipping to fill these last few, adding some lovely sparkle. A bit of bling never goes astray, does it?

BEFORE DAWN, chipping detail

I then repeated the purple burden stitch in the area at the top, adding satin stitch along one side and, again, defining the area with gold threads.

BEFORE DAWN, detail

I changed the line along the left-hand side of the next shape slightly and added more gold. I would normally always add the metal threads last, but since this is not planned at all, I have not allowed the width for the metal along the marked lines and since I want the metal to 'sit down into' the embroidery, I need to have them in place before filling in.

The area on the other side of the purple burden stitch is filled with satin stitch using the darker shade of green. It doesn't show all that well when photographed, but it sits like a smooth pane of coloured glass in a lead light window.

When I am not sure about a stitch or colour, I will work just a bit of each to test it out so that there is less 'reverse' stitching if it is not right. Making things up as you go, results in a rather messy looking work surface at times as you can see above.

BEFORE DAWN - running stitch filling top left.

The second to last section of the background is filled in the same way as the pink area on the other side. I use very long running stitches, only picking up a single fabric thread between each stitch. By off-setting the points where I pick up fabric, I achieve a relatively smooth and solid ground, that - and this is a big plus - if pretty quick to stitch.

The plan is to fill the remaining area with close rows of stem stitch, in the same way at the large green wavy shape. I am thinking of using the pink but shading it off into tan and off-white, but seeing the narrow strip below, I am not so sure...

BEFORE DAWN - Work in progress

By the way, someone asked how big this is. It is just under 10cm (4") square, so not big at all.

I had hoped to have Before Dawn finished by the end of the week, but despite good progress that is not likely to happen. Never the less, I am really happy with how much I got done in the last few days.
I hope you too have had a good week and can look forward to a relaxing weekend ahead.

Best Stitches,
Anna