Embroidered art project

I have been posting a lot about playing with supplies lately, so today I thought I'd show a work in progress.  I really like including texture and depth with fiber, so the piece I am working on has both.

I started with a brown wool sweater that I tied balls (made from aluminum foil) into, and then felted it in the wash machine. I took the aluminum balls out and sewed in scraps of the brown sweater so they would keep their shape. I spray basted and pinned this to a piece of gold fabric and I have been hand embroidering around the balls.

 I started with a dark green thread closer to the ball and and each row is progressively lighter.

I have one more row of embroidery to do, then I will cut off the extra brown sweater fabric, exposing the gold fabric. It will basically look like a big applique. There will be other fabrics on the sides as well before I am done. I am trying to finish this for a call for entry which is due November 9th.