The embroidery I started on Thursday.

When my embroidery design has a solid-colour block with a relatively simple shape, my thoughts always go first to appliqué. I’m trying to break that habit and use stitches to fill the area instead. I get a more interesting surface this way, and I can challenge myself to learn new types of stitches.

This one is called “oriental stitch” in the few books where I’ve seen it, although most other sources use that name to mean something completely different.