Cowslip leaves

The last lap!  The very last bit of embroidery to do for the bottom panel is the leaves for the cowslips. These are all together in a bunch rather than separate, and are nice rounded shapes, so much easier than the wood avens leaves.  The technique is the same as ever, though, but just quickly:-

I outlined the edges of all the leaves, even the ones or parts of ones that aren’t on an edge to be cut, in buttonhole stitch in Madeira 1410:

Then worked a single line of split stitch in three strands of 1412 to form the leaf veins:

Bands of stitches in 1411 in the centres of all the leaves:

Followed by a band in one strand of 1411 and one of 1410:

And then the rest filled in with 1410:

And here's the entire cowslip sheet, completed:

And that's it!  Wow.  Well, that's it for the first panel, there are another three to go, but never mind that now.  I could start straight on with more flowers for the other panels, but for all our sakes I'm going to move onto something different, and actually complete the bottom panel of the Banner.  This should really give the first idea of what the finished article will look like.  It's quite exciting!