Kingfisher Completion!

 So, when you last saw this it just had the base stitching.

I bite the bullet and started colouring with my Inktense pencils.

This is before the water was added.

 This is after a spritz from the water bottle - the colours are brighter and fixed.

Then there was another pause until I decided how to stitch the ivy on the river wall.

 I stitched the ivy, and started laying out leaves to represent the trees around the site, based on my A3 size (or so I thought).  I wanted the leaves to be more 'foreground' as if the viewer was looking out through the greenery around.

 Then I added 'branches' of homemade cord (embroidery floss with zig zag stitches over it).

And some organza weed in the river - with a little quilting for the river water

 And some fish, which I'd forgotten to add earlier, but needed to be included, as otherwise why would the kingfisher be there?

 Then, using my marked lines, I chopped off the excess.  Hmm, slightly more than I thought, but I trusted my marking.

 I went ahead and bound the piece, added a hanging sleeve....

Added the kingfisher - glossing over the fact that surely, that would make those leaves on the other side of the river, not in the foreground.  I should confess here that I'd expected my kingfisher to be perching on the bridge structure on the right hand side, but I'd mis-remembered which way he was facing!

Finished!  I was quite pleased with it.  Until the very moment that I hung it next to the other piece that I'd made for the same A3 challenge - and found that it's quite a lot smaller!

I really thought that I'd measured twice and cut once, but whatever I'd done, it didn't add up to an A3 hanging!

Oops!

I'm still pleased with how it worked out, and enjoyed revisiting some of these techniques, but there is no getting away from the fact that it doesn't meet the brief!