Killing Christmas or Sunrise at the Lily Pond

So I realised between lack of posts generally and a glut of submission posts now I've been able to catch up with work in the sketch book, it's been a while since I did a post dedicated to work on one particular sample.

I spent a good portion of the day yesterday working with primary and complementary colours.  I have to admit that I was pretty uninspired when it came to the thought of working with red and green.  I have nothing against the colours individually but together there is just no getting away from the fact they shout Christmas.

Anyway off I went merrily stitching away until I reached a point that I thought 'would do' for the sample.

There is no doubting the colours work well together. neither one really dominates the other.

But no matter what way you look at it it just says Christmas.....yuck.  No offense to all you Christmas fans out there it's just not a time of year that really holds happiness for me anymore.  So all that said and done I decided to put the sample under the machine again in an attempt to try and kill Christmas......

So I stitched and stitched and stitched and ended up with something I'm so much more happy with.

 Maybe I haven't quite managed to kill Christmas but it's definitely on it's way out.

I think the finished sample has so much more of a landscapey feel to it now.  The colours don't really ring true to life in this photo - where the stitching is overlayed in places the colours are becoming a lot more brown in tone, and I think the zig zag stitch makes it look really like a rippled reflection in the water.  The reflection of sunrise over a lily pond maybe?

Ok so that might be a bit of a stretch for the imagination, but hey to me that's a whole lot better than Christmas tree.