Machine wins !

With eagerness to get hand stitching on my leaves, after work I dashed to my in-town LQS for embroidery floss, then dashed home to start hand stitching my leaves on my Bargello vine.

I found my Embroidery Tote in a corner and washed the dust off the box. With an effort for organization, I wound these new threads on the appropriate little gadget, put the thread ID number on that little gadget (what is that thing-y called - plastic spindle?? ), lined everything up in appropriate sections in my organizing box, and started my stitching. Uhhh, not quite was I was thinking - oops, I know, I'm heading the wrong way - gotta start from this end. Drats, knots, cut the blasted thing and restart. Hey world, do I hafta know which end to knot on embroidery floss? "HEY, DH, sweetie, sugar pie, would you please bring me my needle threader???" Oops, that's not looking so great either - crud, I have 3 threads instead of 2. Again, ??? strength for this project is waning fast ... Crud, I know, stitches too big .. but .... oh crud, this looks like XXXX! It's just sitting there, on TOP of the fabric, with pokies evident here and there.
OK, I knew using the machine for doing a featherstitch would be a pain, since I already had the border on, but ... in about 30 minutes, I had a good portion DONE! My vote is for the machine work for this project. It gives the leaves the barb-y, prickly edge that I wanted, the darker thread (dark green) is the perfect 'look', and I'm very happy. Where the leaves go into the border and over a seam or two, I used telephone book pages for stabilizer, and that worked like a charm.
And, FYI, my machine has stitches that slant UP, and another mode for the same stitches that slant DOWN. I did not push for perfection and stuck with just one mode.

One other thing - I was worried about messy stitches when starting and stopping with that awkward featherstitch, so I did NOT do a locking stitch. Instead, I left a thread tail when starting and stopping, and then, using an easy-threading needle, quickly threaded the threads to the back where I tied them together. If you haven't seen one of these needles, they are kinda open at the end, and the thread sort of slips into the eye. Perfect for this use. I keep that needle in a special segment in my tomato pin cushion, because it's hard to recognize.

I feel like a 5-yr. old in kindergarten, still playing with my colors, paints and pencils. Life is good.