Thanks for sharing the vid. I saved it. Her text is gorgeous! The stem stitch is easy enough but wa-a-ay more than I want to use for words, at least at this beginning stage of my journey. 
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What Abbie said about backstitch and stem stitch, that’s what I do - I also echo that shorter stitches will help you get around tight curves and corners in lettering. Looking forward to seeing the results!
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If you like the running stitch, I’ve done a forward and back stitch. Space stitches evenly with the gaps the same as the stitches and then turn around at the end and fill in all the gaps ending at the start. It leaves a smoother back that’s nice on napkins and dish towels. I have no idea what it is called.
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I think might be called Double Running Stitch, or Holbein Stitch?
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It feels good to be embroidering every other day or so.
I used an erratic running stitch on the lemon to simulate the lemon peel texture. I tried to stagger the stitches whenever I could. I do plan to use a smoother satin or long and short stitch on the large lemon. I’ll probably do another running stitch on the baby lemon.
I varied the size of some of the french knots by wrapping the floss from 2 to 4 times.
I like the way that the words came out. They’re not perfect but they have a whimsical look, like the rest of the design. I may use a chain stitch for the bracelet chains or build it up with a combination of chain stitches and french knots.
I’ll use a satin stitch for the fingernails and a back stitch for the lifelines. I’ll vary the leaf stitches for the lemon leaves.
Thanks for looking.
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It’s coming along nicely! I do like how you did the lemon…to make it look more like the dimpled peel!
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Your lettering came out great! And I also love the texture your stitches give the lemon.
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Is it really 5 more days till month’s end? Goodness! I need to finish the baby lemon outline, the nails, the leaves and the bracelet.
It has been challenging for me to get the correct angle of the satin stitch fill. I don’t think it is the large size of the space covered. I think it’s the curves. Ran into trouble with the top left of the lemon. After restarting it several times trying to take the stitches all of the way to the top, I decided to just fill it in.
I wanted to make the baby lemon different than the other 2. Was going to do a combo of yellow French knots and satin stitches. The knots were going so well that I decided to keep going. That made the lemon completely different and I really like it.
If I had thought of it in the beginning, I would have put the French knot lemon at the bottom and the running stitch lemon at the top for balance.
Next time I will cut down my fabric. This is a napkin that I chose to use for the fabric, not for a napkin project. It’s frustrating to flip the corners as I work. I could trim it now.
The black floss was so curly that it caused me to remember that I have a beeswax holder. Running the thread through 2-3 times and then running it through my fingers made a big difference.
Lisha at Yesterday’s Thimble shares her extended method of waxing thread.
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What was supposed to be a quick little project took way too long!
Close up:
Details:
I drew a pattern onto some white felt and then started stitching. The fill in is a mix of satin stitch and split stitch. I outlined with backstitch and used a chain stitch around the outside to set off the lemon rind. The background is a printed black on black quilt fabric because I am using it to make a pouch. I hope to get that done this week as well.
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So striking! Very nicely done satin fill and I like your chain stitch border. Nice drawing too the way your lemon slices are angled.
Thanks. I am a very casual stitcher. I really don’t know too many stitches and I am not that good at any of them. I thought I would do more stitching and learn new stitches in the February Thing a Day. I started a fabric embroidery book a few years ago that I would like to finish this year
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I love your casual style. The non-perfectly-rounded-edges make them look like two dried lemon slices. Ready to pop in a cocktail? 
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Wonderful! Did you use variegated thread or did you create the highlighting on your own?
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This was a spur of the moment project so I didn’t quite have enough yellow thread to do whole lemons and not enough of any one color of yellow, so I cobbled them all together with what I had. I used five different yellows, @Abbeeroad . Tried to use the lighter ones on top and the darker towards the bottom like you would do with paint. The chain stitching around was to cover up bad blanket stitching…
Sometimes necessity/scarcity IS the mother of invention/creativity! ha ha
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I love it! It looks totally intentional.
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They reminded me of dried lemon slices too, of which I’ve been planning to make some in my vintage, plastic, 6-tray dehydrator.
I would like to start a fabric embroidery book. Do you have any pics here of your progress?
I started with some left over charm fabrics in a color palette I liked. I decided to do one embroidery stitch per “page”. The problem is that after about six pages, it is quite thick! So I am not sure how I want to bind them…maybe in an accordion style, maybe sew four together to make a larger “page”…I have about six in my stitching basket ready to embellish when the mood strikes me.
You can see how thick the double sided “pages” are!
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Oh my! They are beautiful! Much more elaborate than I was thinking. I was confused at first because there are more than one stitch type on each page. Then I saw the names of the featured stitches and the examples within their own little panels. Well, this is amazing! A far cry from what I imagined. I was thinking more of sampler pages. These are little artworks. Thanks for sharing your lovely inspiration! I like the embellishments too!
Gorgeous. Have you followed TAST (take a stitch Tuesday) in the past? You’d love it.
That would make a gorgeous sewing machine cover, like the TM ones.