Last week, on my Facebook page, I posted a photo of my current embroidered tree project similar to the photos below.

I asked folks this: If you were going to remove and re-stitch one leaf, which one would it be?

In retrospect, when I sat down with this project yesterday (I didn’t finish it by the weekend – I got sideswiped by some other work), I decided that two leaves have to go.

Which ones would you remove and re-stitch, and why? I’ll tell you my thought processes below!

So here’s a shot at the most of the tree so far.

There are two leaves that are bugging me. One is slightly bugging me. The other is Really bugging me.

Now, normally, if something is only slightly bugging me, I might let it pass. In the scheme of things, when all is said and done, when the project is stitched, whatever is slightly bugging me may sink into the background or may work out to look better than I originally thought.

But when something is Really bugging me, it has to come out.

Often, folks will say, “You’re the only one who will ever see it.” And that might be true (in this case, I don’t think it is…I think other people will see it pretty clearly), but when it comes down to it, we’re the ones who look at our embroidery. If, every time we look, something askew stands out at us, it will be a perpetual little thorn.

I figure it’s always better to tackle that little thorn right away, as quickly as possible, and move past it so it doesn’t nag us for the rest of the project.

When faced with a little stitching kerfuffle that bothers you, have you ever set a project aside and never returned to it?

I find that, if I tackle the little molehill right away, it won’t become the looming mountain that bothers me so much that I can’t get back to a project!

So that’s my reasoning for this next step on this project, which will be some un-stitching. I just don’t want to be annoyed every time I look at it, and I don’t want it to turn me off from the rest of the project.

You’ve probably figured out which leaf (and maybe leaves – the second one isn’t so obvious) needs work. It’s the one that slightly jars.

It’s the leaf with battlement couching outlined in coral.

When I used this technique on the other side of the tree (I wrote about it here), I outlined in a much lighter yellow, which blended well and didn’t set off the leave so starkly from the other leaves around it.

The darker coral outline jars. It sets the leaf off and makes it stand out too much from the surrounding leaves. The outline, at least, must go!

The other leaf isn’t as obvious. It might not annoy you as much as it annoys me, and you might not even notice it, once the tree is finished and you aren’t looking at it close up.

It’s the green and yellow leaf just to the right of the coral-outlined leaf. There’s a stitch on the lower left side of the leaf that is out of sync with the stitches around it, causing the leaf to look bent in a way that doesn’t fit with the shapes of the leaves in the whole piece. I can probably unstitch just to that mislaid stitch and correct it.

Did You See It?

Did the coral outlined leaf stand out to you, too?

Do you see any other leaves that you think you’d change if you were doing the same project? How would you change it (or them)?

Feel free to weigh in with your thoughts, insights, and suggestions below!

I’ll be back to working on this project this afternoon. I have a two hour stitching spot on the schedule, and, barring any interruptions, I should have these leaves corrected and several more in. Here’s hoping!

Hope you have a Magnificent Monday and that you get an opportunity to hang out a bit with your needle and thread!