Melissa Shirley stable IV

Quite a bit of my free time at Needle Nicely over the last 3 weeks has been devoted to picking out the two-tone background of an 18mesh Christmas stocking.  It was the same dye lot, but areas were stitched at different times over the years and  an ugly, mottled effect was the result.  Now that I've finished that chore and passed the stocking on to a stitcher, I am able to concentrate on the stable for the Melissa Shirley congress cloth creche.

 I've finished the nobuko stitch  for the outside wall.  And then I took 3 shades of DMC embroidery floss to do the long/short split stitch for the plant on the left side of the building.  I stitched this plant after I had stitched the surrounding building.  I used a sharp needle and physically pierced the fibers for the blended effect I wanted.