Finished!!!

I spent a few hours with Tracy today putting the finishing touches to the artichoke.

And here is the finished article!  It's been hard work, but worth it I think.  

Off the frame!

This morning was taken up with tidying up edges and filling gaps so I got it off the frame after lunch.  So it's still not quite finished, but not far to go now.

Almost done!

Still plenty of tidying up to do though.  I'm not happy with the scraggy edges on the last few leaves, there is a hole in the leaf on the right, and I think where the black leaf meets the green leaf needs softening a bit. But I'm really pleased to have got to this stage, and I'm even happy with some parts of it!

One side complete.

Just two more leaves to go now!

A leaf I'm happy with.

Well, almost happy, the outside curve isn't quite right, but other than that I'm happy with it.  Only three leaves left now, and a week to do them in.

Only four leaves left.

The biggest remaining leaf and fiddly bit are done now.  I had my usual crisis of confidence while stitching the right half of the leaf, for some reason that was far harder than the left side, which seemed much easier and smoother.  I'm happy to have finally joined the stem to the main part of the artichoke, it's been floating around on it's own for a while now!

Only five leaves and a fiddly bit left!

I finished the last big leaf yesterday,and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.  So only one medium leaf, four small ones and a fiddly bit to go!  And less than two weeks left to do it in.

I need more hours in the day...

How many times can I say I haven't made as much progress as I would have liked before it doesn't mean anything any more? I wanted to have the big leaf on the right finished before my definitely last stitch day with Tracy tomorrow.