Trevelyon's cap - first green silk leaf

Slowly, slowly the cap progresses. I am thinking of it as a  l...o...n...g  term project. Silk is finer than wool and it takes longer to fill any shape. The stitching has to be delicate. When all the silk is stitched, I will be stitching the gold and that will take even longer. I don't mind: every stitch is making what I hope will be a small masterpiece.The first green leaf is finished and the shading went very well indeed. Thanks to Tracy Franklin, who helped me last year, and Nicola Jarvis, who helped me this summer. I am beginning to feel that every once in a while I am the master of the needle and the thread rather than the other way around.I'm not afraid to do what I know works for me even though it may not be what I've read about in books. For example, to begin the shading on the leaf (after I stitched the outline with split stitch) I first put in directional stitches. So, before I worked my way around the shape, I put in stitches that would guide the direction of the stitch as I went around the shape. This helped me enormously to put each stitch in the right place, to compensate for the curves enough but not too much and to make sure the stitches followed the shape of the leaf.When I stitched the first color, I went quite deep into the shape and varied the length of stitches just as I'd been told by Tracy Franklin - longer and shorter.Adding the second layer, I shifted the direction of the stitches a tiny bit when I felt they were in the wrong place. Perhaps the end of the first stitch was on a different line to the end of the second stitch. Since the second layer of stitching covers up the first layer at the bottom, it doesn't really matter. What's important is to make sure the stitches reflect the shape.The third layer (and darkest color) had to be stitched right up to the line of the veins in the leaf. The gold passing thread will go here and I wanted to leave a small trough for the gold thread to snuggle into.Aren't these greens just beautiful?! All of them are from Pearsall's and from the color range Laurel Green: 218, 220 and 221. I was a bit worried about the lightest shade but it lifts the leaf just a bit and makes it stand out beautifully next to the deep blues of the flower. Do you see the little circle of purple under the blue flower and above the green leaf? You'll see that purple again lower down in the design.One leaf down, 5 to go. It's a busy time of year and I'm not getting as much done as usual but slow progress if fine. More time to think and to enjoy each stitch.Do you enjoy slow stitching or does it drive you crazy? Or does it depend on what you're stitching? Share you thoughts with us!