Knitty and Stitchy

This double point needle case was made for a friend who runs her own crafty business alongside her regular job. Along with needle cases and knitting bags, she hand-dyes sock yarn with entertaining names.
After seeing me work on projects for the last couple of years, she asked for a personalized item.
Once she gave me the corduroy and the funky Asian print lining from ReproDepot, the simplest thing that I could think of (without spending weeks on searching and sketching designs for things like umbrellas and fish) was a sprig of cherry blossoms.
The color scheme:


A few design ideas:


The stitching:

A closer look:


The flowers are in buttonhole stitch, the leaves are fishbone, the buds are nested detached chain and the stems are split stitch. The leaves and twig are two different colors of floss twined together. I'm happy with the blend of the greens but the browns aren't quite close enough in shade even though that does add to the sense of three dimensionality.

View with the lining:


The colors in the stitching are a little less dramatic than those in the lining but that seems appropriate to the subject.

I hope that she likes it!

Update: She did. She has also offered the chance to make a little money by embellishing a few of her knitting bags for sale. It would be great to pay for crafty splurges by selling work! I don't think that this would ever be the level of business that could make up for everything that I would want to do but, as it is easier to justify spending money out of pocket for gift components than personal fun components, I might be able to feel less guilty about the odd purchase for myself.