Loveday tree trunk is growing

The tree trunk on the Loveday crewelwork piece is growing skyward. I needed some time to work out the split in the trunk where the first large branch goes off to the left, but eventually I worked it out.I wanted the lines of golden browns to flow gently up the trunk and off to the side without any abrupt turns. It was really helpful to have the Loveday print to refer to when stitching!At the bottom of the trunk I divided the area into equal sections and tapered the streams of color as I stitched upwards. After the introduction of the leaf, I had to stop and look at the print to determine which colors carried on upwards and for how long. Once I felt confident about which colors and where they would be placed in order from left to right, I stitched a guide line of each color before filling in the sections. You can see the beginnings of the guidelines in the photo below. I had quite a few threads going at once and it was fun to see it come together.The large branch that goes off to the left needed to have 5 different sections of color at the beginning and taper to only one at the end. I first stitched the darkest color along the bottom of the branch but left a little bit of space at the end for two other colors above to go to the very tip. Filling in the other colors along the length of the branch was then relatively straightforward.Of course, you've noticed the pretty green leaf in the photos - I couldn't resist adding a touch of green and trying something different amid all the stem stitch! Lovely isn't it?!