my october stitch club hoop is coming along so nicely. i'll be sad for this one to end!

⠀
after i whipped all the back stitched outlines for the yellow ginkgo leaves, i tried a few different fill stitches. some were too heavy, some weren't giving me the definition that i wanted for these shapely leaves.⠀

so i ended up going with single-stranded seed stitches, and i'm loving the effect! the seed stitches give the leaves a nice shaded fill, but they're so dainty and light that they don't overpower.⠀

i'm scattering these randomly, not thinking too hard about spacing, just trying to keep them relatively evenly spaced and sized.⠀