Autumn Stripes

Our Christmas decorations have all been taken down today, leaving the house looking bare and empty (amazing really when it is still crammed full of everyone's hobby items!). For me it is the worst time of year as, before Christmas, the lights are up, twinkling like beacons in the endless darkness and there is family time and present giving to concentrate on. After Christmas, for the next two months the winter chill will have really set in and the world is dark with no happy lights shining out of windows. Things get better in two months time as the sunrise returns and my Vitamin D levels creep back up to a sensible level, but it feels like a long road to get there.
For now, it is back to the same old routine, and lots of relaxing stitching. This little autumnal hoop is the fourth in the #inthehoop series, and touches again on autumn as a theme as I enjoyed the last one so much. The colours are slightly darker in this piece and perhaps a bit more of a mish-mash. I have used some of the same fabrics , the top piece here was the bottom in another, and the chevron pattern has been previously used for the tree trunks themselves.
I have continued my messy satin stitches as mentioned in my previous post, in this case they are in shades of gold, orange, dark brown and chestnut which brings a lovely range of colour to the section behind the trees. The bottom flower layer is another from my Japanese stand and has gold print running through it, highlighted with my use of DMC metallic threads for both detached chain stitch flowers and also some flower stems right in the foreground with my traditional bullion knot flowers.
The stripes on the trees have been followed with different thicknesses of whip stitch. For some of the colours I have only used a single strand of thread for both the initial running stitch and again in the whip stitch worked around it, and in others it is one running stitch and two whip, or two running and two whip- if you see what I mean. It helps to keep the texture interesting and add depth to the 'trunks'.
Another one all ready to go!