I am plugging away on the embroidery for Lisa's autumn runner. Using chain stitch mostly I am filling in the shapes of the stylized wheat ears because the painted myrobalan used to dye them turned out too dark...a little like snot, if truth be told. Covering them completely makes me wonder why I went to all the trouble to paint them and wax them. I could have dyed the cloth and then marked the the wheat in with pencil or marker and saved myself a lot of work, but the goldish background means I can make the embroidery a little more open which increases the texture of the stitching, and I like that. I am thinking about how to handle the center, and wondering if I need to add a shadow line around the wheat. It is even lower contrast now so maybe a shadow would sharpen the images. Embroidery does lift the shapes into the light.