The shapes on the Royal Persian Blossom are filling up beautifully. Each of the leaf shapes is worked with a different filling - some simple, some complex. The variety is interesting and stitching this has helped me to see all the different ways one can fill a shape.The shape next to the "cobbled dots" is filled with very delicate branches of buds (French knots) and a few small flowers (satin stitch). The branch was a section of the design that I didn't transfer but drew freehand. I'm feeling more confident in my ability to copy something by drawing now. :) After stitching the branches inside the larger shape, I worked the outline in chain stitch. As I was working, I concentrated on making every stitch the same size as all the others. Chain stitch looks lovely when each link of the chain is the same size and, because it's a quick and easy stitch, I find sometimes I've not been as meticulous as I could be. One of my goals for this year's stitching is even, uniform stitching. (I'm a teacher and think of 'years' as school years not calendar years!)After the branch shape was filled, I moved on to the next section. It has four parts and I've gotten two of them finished. Both have an edge and a center line of chain stitch and the middle of each shape is outlined in stem stitch. This section worked up really quickly. Again, I was as careful as I could be with the size of each chain stitch.The mixture of the gold shades is lovely, especially next to the blue. As the piece progresses I can see how all the colors will work together across the whole design.Each of these little shapes is filled with light, airy fillings. One is all seeding and the other long straight stitches punctuated with French knots.The contrast of the open fillings to the long and short shading is perfect. This is something I'm paying close attention to as I work - how both the density and the texture are varied. It's one of the things I like best about this design and I'm hoping to absorb some of these ideas.As I worked I was thinking about how different it is to stitch someone's design, using their stitch and color choices from stitching your own design. It reminded me of all my years and years of playing etudes. Etudes are musical pieces or studies written specifically to teach  a certain musical skill, technique or pattern. Only after I had mastered thousands of these did I feel ready to play the greatest pieces of music to the standard the music demanded.As a relative beginner in embroidery, I've learned most of the stitches and come close to mastering a few. (I know the notes and can play some scales and simple pieces). I'm beginning to develop the ability to combine stitches skillfully and artistically, (I've got some etudes learned) but creating something masterful is still a ways off(not yet ready for Mozart or Mahler!). I'm so happy to have designs like this one to learn with - something that is beautiful, interesting and challenging.