Goldwork acorn and foliage

This is one of the designs I brought home from our goldwork class, and I'm doing it strictly for practice, since it's not my design.  I'm paying attention to shading in couching work, using four different shades of the same color family to stitch down the gold thread, a Jap thread I'm holding double, two threads at once.

And there's an acorn in here, so the acorn I did first will serve as a good indicator of how I might do this.  I won't use plate this time, I think. I love to see the threads and tools in waiting to be used. The sight of teacher Carol's box of threads and tools was a big part of my enthusiasm for goldwork, aside from the wonder of the works she'd created.  The two pairs of scissors you see here, one is a good pair, for cutting silk thread, the other a cheapie for cutting gold thread.