Nasturtium roundel – leaves

Onto the leaves next.  There was quite a bit of work in them, but I’m very pleased with how they’ve turned out.

To start with, I added the leaf veins in a single line of split stitch.  In the other leaves I’ve done I put them in last, but with the shape of the nasturtium leaves I felt that they would just get lost in the other stitching that way, so they went in first.  Also unusually, they’re lighter than the rest of the leaf rather than darker, using Madeira stranded cotton no. 1409:

Nasturtium leaf veins in split stitch

I want the leaves to look quite bright and fresh so I’m using quite light greens.  I used long and short stitch in two strands of 1410 for the outer third or so of each leaf:

The outer portion of each nasturtium leaf worked in long and short stitch

Then the next third in one strand of 1410 and one of 1411:

Starting to add shading to the leaves

And the final third in two strands of 1411:

The finished nasturtium leaves

Here’s a close-up of a leaf, so you can get a better look at the shading:

A completed needle-painted leaf

I’m really pleased with the overall effect.  Let’s hope the flowers work out as well!