Last week, Hengest gained a face. And what a face it was. Let’s just say that someone compared him to Claudia Winkleman.

When stitching Ethelnute at the medieval embroidery retreat I found that the dark lines we put in for the nose and eyes looked much less prominent once the other stitching had been done around it (the later stitching part-covered it, pushing up against it) so that’s what I expected would happen here as well. But even so, the eyes were very black. Very very black. And I remembered that Ethelnute’s facial features had actually been done in a dark brown. And that, in the past, I had read or heard that pure black is often a no-no.

So I surveyed my collection of crewel wools and pulled out the darkest grey and the darkest brown I could find; because of all the other greys in Hengest, I picked the brown from the more muted, cooler range, rather than one of the warm browns.

Lots of people have come up with comments and suggestions about how to make this change, and mulling them over for a bit I decided to cut out the black, then stitch the outline only in a quick running stitch in brown for one eye and grey for the other. Some people suggested stitching the eyes last, when I have a better overview of what Hengest’s colours look like together, but as I said above, I think the eyes (and the nostrils) will actually blend in better if the other stitching is done around them.

Did you notice I said “cut out the black”? Having read what I wrote about unpicking split stitch when Hengest acquired his unplanned blue spot, a fellow-stitcher asked why I didn’t just cut the stitching out. Well, there I was taking out part of a thread, and I needed to retain enough of the unpicked bit to be able to fasten off again, so the other part of the thread, which was clean and OK to stay put, wouldn’t get undone. The eyes and nostrils, on the other hand, are isolated elements, so here I was definitely happy to take the short cut and use my nice small pointy scissors. And tweezers as well, because black leaves quite a residue!

Then it was a matter of trying with the two dark-not-blacks, in simple running stitch so it’ll be easy to take out before the official restitch.

So now I’ve got a brown and a grey eye. And I don’t know which one I like best. I still think the grey would fit in better with the rest of the palette, but in isolation I rather like the look of the brown. Perhaps I could give him grey eyes and brown nostrils! That way I can use the brown, but not in such a prominent position. But no, that’s just chickening out from taking a decision. So my decisive decision is that I’ll mull it over for a bit, perhaps stitch some other wool project, or something different altogether, and then have another look at it and make a real firm decisive decision.

By the way, someone on an embroidery FB group posted a close-up picture of the original Steeple Aston Cope horse, and oh my goodness me, it’s got irises! I hadn’t noticed that in the pictures I used, which were all rather smaller. However, I don’t think I’ll manage to get in an iris in Hengest’s eyes, as he is much more diminutive than his cope cousin. Not in the wool version anyway – it should be possible in the silk though… *scuttles off to find the coloured pattern and add a line of blue*

PS concerning my earlier remarks about not posting embroidery photographs which are not your own even if the embroidery itself is in the public domain – they still hold, but I decided that showing the eyes only would probably be all right. If you know otherwise, please let me know so I can rectify it.