I've been embroidering the chuppah every day and have finished the white outlines of the basic pattern. This helps bring life back into its post-wax blandness, but it isn't enough. The original idea was to keep the chuppah quiet, even monochromatic in color, but from the first (almost) it has been hinting to me that it needs more. Specifically, I have envisioned spring green. Accordingly I have just begun to outline the background fronds (silk screened in tannin and kind of yellowish) with two strands of chartreuse floss as a lower profile variation from the whites, which are #3 and #5 perle cotton. It is very subtle but it introduces a greenish haze without competing with the main pattern, I hope.
As I hold this cloth in my lap, stitching and stitching, I keep thinking it needs more green and more darks. I have thought of running words in a darker green up the fiddlehead shapes and adding contrast, but when I hold it up to the light more contrast doesn't seem so critical. The white shapes jump out and the pattern is clear.
The wedding will be outside (please, please, no rain!) so I think this is how it will be seen on that day. I makes me hesitate to add green, or any stitching that will block the white parts, but the piece needs to work with the light and without it. I will continue to outline the yellow fronds and listen for suggestions from the cloth. At some point, time alone will shut me down.