Oriental Fan Part 2

Another week of work is under my belt on this one. I still haven't heard from Dimensions about my Elegance of the Orient pattern and so I guess I'll be working on this project until it's complete!

This week I did a bit of the red border on the left side and a bunch of the ivory background so that I could do the back stitching to create the effect of the accordion folds of the fan. Next, I did the back stitching on the first flower and its leaves and part of the second flower. I LOVE the effect that back stitching provides! It really makes the art work come alive!

I try to keep the back of my work neat and so I try not to jump more than a few stitches. Instead, I will finish and restart the thread in the new place. I've been experimenting with a new trick to keep the back neat. I have been weaving my thread through the back of my work so that all of my stitches are either vertical or horizontal and never diagonal. Let me elaborate:

Say, I'm stitching the following pattern (Ignore the underscore on the second row. It's not a stitch; it's just helping me create placement for this blog)

XXXX
_XXXX

I will start top left and stitch the first row so that I end up back at top left. But here's my new trick: When I start the second row, instead of just going directly to the bottom left where the stitching begins, and therefore creating a diagonal line on the back, I weave my thread through the back of the first stitch of the top row and then down. By doing this, I have gone horizontally through the first stitch of the first row and then vertically down into the second row and kept with the natural pattern of the stitches I'm doing. I'm AMAZED at the results!