Couched silver infill

I'm currently adding the silver infill between the appliquéd turquoise suede 'mosaic' pieces. This is couched silver thread, using a single silver passing thread, and worked as I described in my 'Goldwork - basic couching' post.

One big difference to the goldwork piece I described before is in the amount of starting and finishing there is to do. In that case (and this is definitely my preferred option!), I used two threads in parallel, and went round and round the shape to be covered with the couching, and when it was all done, finished the threads off. Two thread ends at the start, two at the end; just the four to take through to the back and fasten. Not this time - each gap between two appliqué pieces needs its own length of thread, which needs starting and finishing. I'm spending longer fastening the ends than I am actually sewing!

Still, it's worth it, I think. Here's a section of the Serpent, before the silver thread was added.

Next, I'm couching down the thread a section at a time, so I can finish off a group of ends in one go. This should give you some idea of how many of them there are!

There were six ends just for this small piece; all finished off neatly at the back, and we get this:

I'm quite pleased with the overall effect. I'm part way through the infill, so here's work so far.