Another lighthouse finished

Sanibel Island lighthouse is complete! The trees were stitched with one strand of Impressions #5061 in a vertical diagonal cashmere stitch. The grass was worked with two strands of Wildflowers "Jade" in diagonal mosaic stitch, and the bushes in front of the house are French knots in Sheep's Silk "Green Leaves."

For the sand, I wanted a stitch that mimicked the rivulets that occur when waves wash up onto the shore. I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for in a book, so I grabbed a doodle canvas and some DMC #5 perle cotton and started to experiment. The stitch I've used here is best described as a series of three gobelin stitches over three canvas threads, with the next set of gobelin stitches worked directly over the first set. I'm sure there's a name for this stitch somewhere, but for the sake of simplicity, I'll call it the "sand and snow stitch," as I think it would work equally well to create realistic snow drifts.

Lastly, I re-inserted the cross braces for the lighthouse tower's skeleton supports, once again using two strands of DMC satin floss doubled over in the needle. I tacked these stitches several times on the back of the canvas to prevent any slippage down the road. I can now add this little model to my stockpile of canvases ready to go to the finisher!