Making a forest floor machine embroidery piece - part four

Once I had the background, the fallen branch and the fungus, I had to audition where they would all go together. The brach was quite malleable and I had a bit of fun trying out various ways to place it. Some of them suggested to me that the branch had rotted quite a lot, it was quite good to be able to make it loosely branch-shaped and not have to make it too cylindrical.

Part of the assignment was to include some hand embroidery. This caused quite a bit of effort!  I had made a lovely background that was stiff and sewn down rather thoroughly.  It was extremely difficult to get a needle through it!!!!

I even managed to break a hand embroidery needle and get the end of a self-threading needle down my fingernail - not very far fortunately.  Two needles broken when hand sewing, in one day.

The resultant hand embroidery was subtle - to say the least.  I limited it to some moss/fungus (I am not really sure which it is) and a couple of tiny spider webs. 

I ended up doing the french knots on some silk paper I had made and then attaching that with a very fine running stitch.

One spider web was sewn on flat.  The other was a messy, 3D in the air, piece of sewing.  It looked realistic enough compared to some of the photos I had taken. Spider webs get damaged in the open. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I don't seem to have taken any really clear pictures of the finished piece, I have a close-up and one from above.