Best circle I could manage!

It's still not perfect, but it's the best circle I managed, and I tried more than once!  I did have to start wondering how many times I could pull out the stitches without the whole thing falling apart.  Next job is to reshape the half circles in the corners.

Arms are done...

I finished off the arms with some rococo and twist, stitched in the detail with twist, with a final bit of pearl purl to hide the joins.  I need to fiddle with the half circles a bit, to pull them back into shape.  Might be a bit tricky but I think it will be worth it.

Outline done

The pearl purl outer edge is all done now, and I think gives a really nice finished edge.  Only some rococo and twist to couch down on the inside of each arm now and my homework is done!  I'm a bit concerned about some pieces of felt showing under the edges of the gold, but I'm hoping Tracy can magically fix that.

Shiny

First update for a while, I have been doing some work, I just haven't got around to blogging it. I do love how shiny its starting to look, I don't think photos really do the shininess justice.  I got all the loose ends plunged, and I've started work on filling in the arms of the cross. Does a cross have arms?

Not sure I'm happy...

I had a really good stitching session, but spent the whole time swinging between thinking it was going badly - couldn't get the stitch angle right, the spacing was wrong etc etc - and thinking I was really improving.  Feels like I've at least made a start now.  I have found a new problem with light, turns out you can have too much of a good thing and if the gold catches the light, I can't see a thing.

Padding

I covered the felt with silk, as some of the centre of each arm will be visible, then put more felt on top of this around the edge of each arm.  Still two arms to stitch on, but I stitched on the first gold!

Felt stitched on

Cutting out felt turned out to be trickier than it sounds. Think it might be a bit uneven but got there in the end.