Back To Black

I am still working through some little double mount frames that I bought in a supermarket a while ago. They got put into the back of a drawer a while ago and every now and then I come across them and take one out to fill up with a Stitchscape! This time I pulled out a grey frame and thought that it would look great with a greyscale 'scape - especially as I bought some more black and white fabric prints at the Ardingly Quilt show at the beginning of the year.
It didn't completely stay black and white though as it was a bit boring and one of my Facebook followers suggested adding a mustard or bright red to the mix - an excellent suggestion! The little seed pods at the bottom got a makeover with alternate mustard-esque coloured satin stitches.

Then the bottom of the layer got a line of back stitch in the darker mustard colour and I thought that was it but the piece was still missing something! It was all linear stripes of fabric with texture but nothing interesting about it, so some mustard bullion knot flowers and grey french knot taper flowers were added in a clump taking up one half of the square.

I really love the greyscale check fabric, the colours of which I have matched in a mixed french knot line to the top of the layer. I have enjoyed experimenting with adding multiple colours to french knots and work them quite often in my Stitchscapes now. It's a really nice way of adding a little bit of something extra to an otherwise boring knot.

I have two lines of couched threads to the tops of layers. One is using two full strands of embroidery stranded floss and the lower one, pictured above, is using four strands of a thicker perlé thread which I've twisted slightly as I couch it down.
All I have to do now is frame it!