Heart Note Alley 2nd Band

Floss arrived just before a snowstorm, now how is that for timing?

With snow whirling about the house, the fire crackling in the woodstove and husband skilled in the making of tea, these last few days were perfect stitching time. I finished the 2nd band, first large floral image of HNA.

One comment I forgot to make when telling you about the first band is that I made some changes in the number of colors due to finding that there would have been too many little fiddly floss changes if I had included more colors. I want these designs to be a pleasure to stitch as well as a pleasure to look at, and having to change floss for colors that are few and far between do not make stitching pleasurable to me. After making the adjustment to the two main colors of the band - the lightest green and the lighter purple, I think it looked better too.

I love band 2, it is one of the bands that inspired the design and I was really looking forward to seeing it stitched. It didn't let me down.
Here it is isolated in the software -

And this is on the fabric -

I used the darkest mauve and darker green for this band and I apologize that my photos aren't better for they are definitely more vibrant than they appear in the photo. This band made me realize that it could also be reminiscent of musical 'notes' as well as fragrance. You'll notice that I positioned the motifs a bit off center, with the large lily type figures not quite evenly spaced at the beginning and end of the band. I think that gives more motion to the piece.

More cold and snow is predicted so hopefully, I'll be posting the next bands soon.