Lizzy, who has very sharp eyes, noticed that I had started stitching the water at the top in yesterday's photo. I don't have a photo today as my old laptop isn't working but you can look at yesterday's picture to see some of the stitching.
I'm using David McCaskill's water stitch from the Stitch of the Month on ANG's website. Here is the link.
http://www.needlepoint.org/StitchOfTheMonth/2003/mar.php
I am having trouble with the stitch as David diagrammed it. The easiest thing for me was to work the stitch in columns from the top down. I did the / slants first, then went back and did the slants in the opposite direction \ using one ply of Splendor blue silk for each slant. You can see both slants in the previous photo. Then I did the third step in an Anchor metallic which is a similar blue working the tent stitch at the end of the / slant first and then did the tent stitches that go at the end of the \ slant. This Anchor thread is very similar to Kreinik's blending filament except it is a bit thicker and stiffer and doesn't separate into two parts like blending filament does. I don't think you can see much of this thread in the photo but in person it has a nice gleam.
I've also started stitching a leaf so I could see how it looks with the fish and water stitching. I'm using two plies of Mandarin floss to tent stitch the olive green part of one leaf. It looks fine although I do have to be very careful that the plies don't twist in the needle. With just two plies, this is very noticable.
I plan to work on the water and maybe finish the leaf tonight. Stay tuned.
Lizzy, let me know if this doesn't answer all your questions.
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow
