Flowers It Is

After mulling over a modern look for my chicken scratch panel, I decided to consult some of the needlework books I have in my library to see if I could find any patterns for flowers that used cross stitch.  Well, there were a lot of them actually, but I settled on one likely candidate and went to work.  Instead of using the double cross stitch that makes up chicken scratch border, I used a half cross stitch and varied the direction in each petal to give the flower a bit of interest.  I also wanted the flowers to stand out from the borders, so changing the stitch was one way to do this.

After completing the first flower, I realized that I needed to give the petals more weight.  Using one strand of floss as I had for the border resulted in a flimsy flower.  It looked like it didn't belong in the panel.  Not wanting to rip it out and work it again, I went back over the stitches with a second strand of floss and that seemed to fix the problem.  The second flower was done first time around with two floss strands.  I am not sure I am completely happy with them, but I am letting them percolate in my mind before I change them in any way.

I wanted to put a side border on the panel, to mimic what I might see in a curtain.  I toyed with the idea of just turning the top border and working it vertically, but since part of the challenge is to explore, I thought using a different stitch might be interesting.  (Side note:  Interesting is a word used to describe something that 1) doesn't quite work, 2) is outright goofy but the viewer is too polite to say so, or 3) genuinely innovative and so unique the viewer needs time to digest what she's seeing.  Number three is definitely out!)  Here's where I'm at so far:

I am going to finish the vertical border today and then try to come up with some stitches that unify the sections I've completed so far so that the piece works as a whole.  I have not yet done much with needle weaving (I did just one row in the horizontal border), so I will probably attempt to use that stitch as a filler.  However, I don't want to use up all the negative space on the tulle.  In looking at commercially made lace, the netting becomes part of the lace design.  And since one of my objectives was to be man emulating machine, I think I want some tulle exposed.