Finishing What I Started

I've had this piece lying unfinished in its embroidery hoop for almost two years now. I left it in the hoop, because I had always intended on finishing it, but then things happened and stitching took a back seat for some time. I'm about to embark on my most ambitious embroidery project to date (no spoilers- sorry, you'll have to wait and see!) and I didn't want to go into that with this half finished project still hanging over me. And probably was a bit of procrastination on my part- big projects are always scary to start!

Nevertheless, I decided to finish it, just to get it done. One thing which really stood out to me, is that the old sections of the piece are really not as a well sewn as the new sections and I feel this shows quite starkly, too. For some reason, I didn't really think that embroidery was something you could develop at- or not at least to this extent. I wrongly assumed that once you knew how to do one style of stitch, say satin stitch for example, then that's how you'd do it forever. But no! Not at all. I look at my satin stitches from then until now and the ones I do now are so much neater and look a whole lot better.

I think at the time, this pattern must have been a little too complex for my skill level back then, but didn't realise it when I was sewing. But reflecting back, it looks like I struggled on some sections- the middle section is really bad and it's the thing I most dislike about the piece. It's so asymmetrical and just messy! What I do like though is the colour palette- I chose reds/ pinks/ yellows/ purples, so it all linked together nicely and contained myself in using every colour which I like the look of! I feel this decision paid off, as I think the colours are one of the strongest things about this piece. Another thing I thoroughly dislike is the line thickness of the tentacles- I had drawn these out in pencil already when I originally traced the design two years ago. So I felt I had no choice but to sew them as per the pencil line- it was either that, or to have pencil showing on the fabric, if I had decided to sew them thinner. I thought I had chosen the lesser of two evils, but looking at the piece, I feel thinner lines might have looked better, even if you could see some pencil marks underneath.

I also decided not to use any black in this piece. I did this because I decided I wasn't going to outline it as I felt I didn't need to, but even the bits which I did outline, I used another colour. As the piece was never going to be 'perfect' anyway, I decided I'd be a bit more free with experimentation on this one. It's so easy to go with a standard black outline, as that's a fairly 'go to' colour, plus you know it just works. Even though the colour outlines don't especially give the results I wanted on this piece, I can see where they could have potential in future pieces.

Despite my qualms with this piece, I am pleased I finished it, as now I'm not constantly thinking 'oh I really must finish that moth/ butterfly I have hanging around'! Finishing it has also shown me how much my stitching has improved and developed in two years and makes me excited about what I can achieve in the future and how far I can develop my craft.

Here it is: