Let the light shine!

St. Marks Lighthouse is finished!

The fronds of the palm trees were stitched "free hand," using one strand of Impressions "Jade," and the bushes were worked in French knots with Wildflowers "Moss Green." The ground at the shoreline was worked in a gobelin stitch with Felicity's Garden "Fawn." I like using Felicity's Garden for natural elements because it produces a soft, heathery look.

The water, frankly, gave me fits! I had originally intended to work it in a Kennan stitch, using two shades of blue darker than the sky, with a little green added. Several attempts, using different shades of blue and green floss and in different numbers of plies, were abysmal. The stitch just looked too contrived, producing stripes where I would have preferred waves. As DH pointed out, "Nature doesn't work in straight lines."

Untimately I relied on a tried-and-true stitch--diagonal cashmere worked horizontally--to produce exactly the effect I was looking for. I blended two plies of DMC #517, one of the darkest shades in the same color family as the sky, with two plies of #501, a darker blue-green. The result is a body of water with a wave pattern stitched in and an irridescence one would normally find on the water's surface on a sunny day. Once again, the technique of needle-blending came to the rescue!