this eucalyptus design is our club pattern for september, inspired by the fresh bundles i like to hang in our showers. (trader joe's is my go-to, they last a long time and look great fresh or dried!)

there are three soothing shades of green for the majority of this design, and once i started stitching, i noticed it was a little tricky to differentiate between the three colors of pattern lines.
so, as you can see here, i'm using my favorite water-soluble pen to mark all of the dark green leaves. (i drew a blue line inside each. i'll be stitching over all the blue marks, but if i wasn't, the lines easily wash away with a spritz of water.)

once the dark green leaves are all stitched, it will be simple to tell the other two greens apart.

i'm using satin stitch [ 2 strands ] here, and varying the direction of stitching for each leaf.

 since i'm using satin for all the leaves (and trying to vary the direction of the stitching each time i start a new leaf), there isn't much to say, so here's a few photos instead:

well, i think it's decided: satin stitch is THE stitch for this pattern.
everything here is done with satin stitch, 2 strands.

i used small horizontal stitches for the stems (vertical would have been faster but i didn't like the look of that) and more satin stitches for the berries. since they are clustered together, i changed the direction of the stitching from one berry to the next. that way, there is a more distinct line between each berry.

almost done! i am not planning to stitch the background lines (those are meant to indicate grout lines between subway tiles).

and here is my finished 'eucalyptus' hoop! here she is, looking very cool and very pretty.

what do you think? will you stitch this one?