unstitched coif - progress

this is slow work and challenging on several fronts - i find small even stitching difficult as it's not my usual style and my eyesight struggles with work this fine, but i am enjoying the achievement of each part

choosing patterns for the fills has been a little tricky - many of the patterns i like are complex and need larger spaces for me to be able to develop them - my linen is too fine for me to be able to count threads, so i have to draw grids (with erasable pen), but these are never as precise as counting threads

but it always looks worse to me looking at it through a magnifying lense - once i see it without magnification it looks much better to me - a better stitcher would  spot the irregularities with ease

the leaves here have crewel style trellis fills - i have made a real mess of these in the past, but with extra care and patience i feel i've done a good job and am please with them

This flower shows my first attempt at chipping, a goldwork technique - i was concerned that it would be too "blingy", but feel happy with it, although i could have done a better job if i had practised first

The section worked so far - the tudor rose has some gold and silver detailing, but that does not show up well here 

This is the whole piece - i still have a long way to go

I have been listening o the audiobook of Hilary Mantel's Mirror and Light , the final part of her Cromwell trilogy -  it seemed appropriate - there are a few birds in the piece, some look like Corvids - Thomas Cromwell had Choughs in his coat of arms, they are corvids with red beaks and legs, so i think i will be stiiching at least one of the Corvids here with a red beak and legs

The squirrel is a red one because it is appropriate for the period, i adjusted its shape a little as it looked a bit crude and red squirrels are such delicate little creatures that i could not stitch the original design and feel happy about it - it means i have strayed from the original, but i can live with that better than a lumpy squirrel! 

at first i stitched outlines in backstitch, but i have tried split stitch on some outlines now - i find it gives a smoother appearance whih is more pleasing to me, so i will use that more now

selecting blackwork fills for the flower is proving to be laborious - i am trawling many sources to find designs which will look good in small spaces - i have also managed to draw a finer grid on more recent fills and hope to be able to use some of the more complex fills in the larger flowers as i come to them - i hope that the progression will be obvious across the piece - i aimed to work this as a type of sampler for myself and i aleady feel that it has helped me to build on my stitching skills

I though i might easily tire of stitching this, but it has been thoroughly enjoyable so far - i have not felt the need to unpick very much, unpicking is often a sign that i am not in the flow with the work so it feels good that i am avoiding that