Stitching Saturday: Roumanian stitch leaves

I'm still working steadily on my floral pillow - most of what's left now is filling in leaves...



I wanted to experiment with different leaf stitches, so I found a stitch diagram on Pinterest, and tried it out:

Apparently, this is the Roumanian stitch - using this diagram as a guide, I got to stitching with some dark green pearl cotton:



The pearl cotton gave it a nubbly texture, but I really liked it - it's almost like fish scales. It's a lot faster to work than satin stitch or the raised herringbone stitch I learned last week, and it eats up a lot less thread.

Here's how I stitched it, step by step:


I tried the same stitch using 2 strands of crewel wool on that bottom left-most leaf:



I love how the crewel wool sort of floats and expands above the fabric - it's a totally different effect!

Here's how I stitched it with the wool:


What do you all think? I'm having a ton of fun finishing up this project - I'm amazed to say I am almost done now! :)

Stitching Saturday: Crewel Obsession

I am having so much fun with this project now! Here I am working some leaves, this time in a DMC pearl cotton - I love the raised texture this stitch gives the leaves. I used this tutorial on Pinterest to form this stitch -  I never execute it perfectly, the leaves always tend to lean to one side or another, but I think that gives it an organic look.



Here I've worked the leaves using 2 strands of crewel wool and the Van Dyke stitch. I was stitching along with Kristin's Craftsy class for this stitch, which is really helpful. I'd tried this stitch before, but only in a straight line, never in a leaf shape. I love the way the crewel wool can stretch into such a fine, defined line, and the way this stitch puffs above the fabric like little green caterpillars. :)

By the way, here is the pattern I am working from for the pillow - it's much more balanced and dense in its original version, but I enlarged it and kind of winged it here and there: