I'm still working daily on Lisa's autumn runner and have started to embroider the center "sun". One of the things I really like about the silk screened image I used as the base for this is it's unregimented, loosey-goosey quality in a still coherent shape. I took it from a small, etched metal piece made by my jeweler friend, with her permission. The trouble that has arisen in this iteration is the need to "bring up" the center motif to the visual level of the other elements in the design...right now, the wheat ears. That means I have to embroider it, but it is hard to embroider loose shapes without constraining and calcifying them. My solution is to use loose waggly lines that don't cover or encase each shape like the wheat ears are covered, but allow the underlying blobs to show through. I find that even though I have just used one strand of floss and tried to keep the embroidery delicate I have changed the feeling of the medallion quite a lot. At first I didn't like it, but in the absence of any other workable solution I kept at it and now see something new emerging. As every piece at some point takes over its own creation, I am being told to let this be what it is becoming and will take it to the end.
Another practical element that I felt was necessary was the addition of a backing piece to keep the large circle from cupping. I was fortunate to find a scrap of harem cloth in my stash, basted it to the back and now am embroidering through it so the circle is reinforced. Eventually it will be trimmed more closely to the circle shape and will then disappear behind the larger backing I'm planning to apply when all the embroidery is finished.