Balance

-------------------- Shapes
Looking at the original design, at the bunch of leaves in the middle (the bunch I'm currently working on) :


the larger leaves were added by the designer on the right to balance the flowers on the left/top. See them hanging out there to 'take the weight'? Otherwise the flowers would look like they are going to tip over, or there was a big bare spot where something should be.

In the original design those 'balancing' leaves are really funny shapes (that hook thing with a mouth, and those two claws behind it). Personally, I don't get the zen of them being leaves.
(Maybe I need to go look at a leafy bunch of poppies)

Meanwhile, I just can't embroider shapes I don't understand. They won't come out looking right either, because I don't understand them.

So I changed those leaves to more of the multi-pointed ones. But I hadn't done them big enough, and needed to make them a big bigger, which I've just done.

And the leaves on the left weren't big enough either, so I did a bit of re-outlining there as well. I've done a bit of leaf re-design. The drawings in the book were pretty casual. The main thing was to get them coming together in the middle in that sort of 'arched' shape.

----------------------- Colours
With the two designs together, the difference can be seen between the original olive green scheme for the leaves, and my emerald green scheme. We're going for opulent, dark and romantic, rather than the lighter blue and pink flowers in the original.

Kit and I got out our thread cards over the phone the other day and picked :-

814-816 in darkest maroon to a mid maroon, (2 flowers)
550-552 for darkest purple up to a dark lilac (1 flower - the one behind the big red one)
719-793 in dark royal blue up to a mid blue

The blue ones I'll be doing will be much darker than the ones in the original design - the original ones have a lot of creamy blue in them.

The behind of the flower at the top left will be a rust orange 919. It will be a second red flower rather than have a pink and yellow bottom. We don't like pink and yellow very much. Luckily having a second red flower there balances colour-wise as well. If the big red one was right next to it, it wouldn't look right - but the colours will still be spread out nicely across the bunch.