Stitching Sundays 17

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas. Stitching Sunday has come round again and I have a little more progress to share with you.  I have added in a few seed head-type plants in the mid ground.  I needed a bit of thinking time as I wasn't sure quite how to tackle these and my first thought was to applique some tiny pieces of felt in order to get the look I wanted.  However, in reality, the tiny pieces of felt just didn't work at all.
(It probably doesn't look much in this photo, so I have added a couple of close ups below in order that all my hard work will be easier to see!)

 I turned to the trusty split stitch for the stem and then double french knots at the base of the stem, moving to single french knots towards the top.  I used six wraps round the needle to make the french knots bigger.

Although I did have a few issues when the thread decided to helpfully get tangled right in the middle of the knot construction, (and this happened quite a few times) I am pleased with the result, which adds more texture to the embroidery as well.  I am slowly moving onwards and the next thing will be the dandelion seed heads.  I have tried these already, with no success at all, so am going to use one piece of thread, rather than my usual three, so that I should get a more delicate stitch.  That is the hope, anyway.