Shading practice

My next practice was to experiment with regular shading from dark to light and light to dark. Again I used a pattern I had tried before, this time from one of the flower petals.

I used three thicknesses of thread; two strands, one strand and sewing machine thread. The last of those is quite annoying as it is much less forgiving than the embroidery silks, it doesn't bend in the same way.The darker sections are shaded very gradually starting with the whole pattern done with two strands, then part of the central star in each of two and one strand then all of it one strand; then doing the same process with one strand and the sewing thread.

I really like how subtle the change is. The shift to the lighter section I think could have done with being more gradual, having the outline shape switch to the thinnest thread at the same time as stitches start to be removed was probably not a good idea, but I still really like the effect of the two blocks next to each other.