Stitching progress
I got quite a lot of stitching done last night and today even in between running around. Here are two pictures of what I've done so far. In the first one, ignore the blue at the left. It's electrical tape that I used to keep the fabric edges from fraying, and I didn't quite get it out of the frame.
For some reason, the holes in the linen are really showing a lot in this small sized picture. The heavy outside border is Portuguese stem stitch in Caron Watercolours thread. The middle one is threaded backstitch in perle cotton threaded with a different color of the Caron. The inner arch is done in stem stitch in perle cotton with a line of backstitching in a darker, variegated cotton, then shadowed in tent stitch done in a very fine silk.
Here's a close-up of the arches. I hope you'll be able to see the shading in the smallest arch.
The Algerian Eye stitches are done in a variegated cotton floss. The color name is "toffee crunch" which I think is just a great name. :)
In case it's too hard to see the stitches, bigger pics are available in my gallery.