I’ve added in the silk. It’s Rolling in the Grass Green from slowCOLOR at Etsy – a filament silk.

I found it easy to sew with, and only encountered 2 slubs.

In unrolling some Russet Red (from the same seller) I saw it was much much slubbier. The indigo was exceedingly fine, and I didn’t come across any slubs in the several yards I unrolled.

So it’s thumbs up for this silk. (I’ll take the slubbiness of the Russet Red as part of it’s nature). It shines like glass at certain angles.

I’ve never used filament silk before, but didn’t run into any problems.

I would have liked to take the green out a little further, as per the original motif, but it would have impacted on the other motifs

Looking at the original image, it looks more like 1/4 of a Splendor thread was used – a thicker thread.

Just a bit more purling to do!

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The centre is looking better now all the pearls are in.

What I think I’ll do is lay over a piece of felt to make an ‘even middle’ and then curl pearl purl around and around in a circle. I need a felt base if I’m to use purl. There is a felt base right down in the middle of the centre, but ‘going down there’ will emphasize the strange shape of the centre.

Yes, there is such a thing as Nature, but I need the centre to be vaguely round. There’s not even a name for the shape it is at the moment.

I have also removed the long ladder stitch from this rose to the dog rose. It was wobbly. It was annoying me. I’m going to do it again.

Maybe in silk, which is kinder to the ground. The ground is looking a bit stressed because I’ve done ladder stitch over it 2 or 3 times now in Lurex. Silk will be kinder in there will be less pulling. Maybe do some raised stem stitch in gold metal thread over that!

(So reverse what Eowyn suggested :-)