Embroidered Book Cover - The Embroidering, part 1

Once the planning stages were done it was time to embroider. But first I wanted to make sure I remembered how to embroider on velvet - and also try out these new materials I had.

The way I learned to embroider on velvet involved tacking a piece of parchment paper on top of the fabric, and sewing right through it. In this case I also tacked the velvet onto stabilizer that was in a frame. This let me make sure the fabric was taught without crushing the precious velvet.

Test run

For my practice run I just copied one of the roses off of the full design. I used passing thread for the lines, and bullion for the fill. The veins are also passing thread, but this thread also has red silk wrapped around the core. I originally intended to fill each petal, but I decided it was better to get on with the main event.

I stretched more stabilizer over a scroll frame, and tacked down the velvet. I then traced the full pattern onto parchment paper and tacked that down. I was careful throughout to leave enough excess to be able to actually turn all this into the cover later.
Halfway through the process I decided that covering a smaller book and using only the inside part of the pattern was probably a good idea for my sanity. I'll use that sweet border some other time.

And then began the couching.

When I asked for feedback on the gloves, a major point was that usually two thread were couched side by side. Of course, looking at my pattern, that is only the case with the main lines. The leaves are a continuation of the main line, but using only on thread, creating the crossover that you can hopefully see below.

I can already see how two threads (and better materials) help make things less wavy.

 Here I have completed all the main lines, with relatively few mistakes. I forgot to do one leaf as I went by, so it doesn't look as smooth.

And as of the end of this weekend I've finished all the lines and have begun to remove the paper!
I thought the lines would be the most painful part, but the paper removal is definitely winning.
The silver passing thread I used for the corner roses is wrapped more tightly and is much more wire like than the gold thread was. I can see this being amazing for longer lines, but for the tiny flowers it was kind of a pain.