Laying the 'basic' threads prior for couching down

I spent this evening experimenting a little with various ways of couching down the threads. I laid down all the 'basic' threads tonight which was a very fiddly job. I need at least four hands to hold the frame, ruler, needle and other side of frame! I did say ruler, yes, very pedantic about those 'basic' threads being *exactly* 5mm apart. With the magnifier I wear any slight deviation looks huge but I also like things to be very accurate, not such a surprising personality trait in a geneticist I suppose.

I hummed a hawed over a couple of points. Although I am doing laid couched work in the style of the Bayeux tapestry on this bit of the panel I'm not trying to recreate the Bayeux tapestry in any way. It just so happens that the people doing the embroidery back then made decisions that also work under the same circumstances now. There is no record of klosterstitch on the Bayeux tapestry but I had a little shot doing it that way and it wasn't going to work for me so I tried doing a bit by laying 'basics' then couching each horizontal 'basic' thread in turn but that isn't really working for me either so I am going to try tomorrow to do vertical couching. I know those ground threads run perfectly straight along the weave of the linen (because I was pedantic about that too) so I know if I couch down them I'll get to the right point on each 'basic' but I did try that a little before and found the wool started to unwind a bit. Hmm, maybe do two passes so the gaps are wider or it may not be a problem if I avoid splitting the two ply strands and just pin the strand, will experiment.

The other things I was thinking about were whether or not to put a bit of contouring over Dolly's shape prior to adding the Pictish spirals (still pondering) and how to best split the vertical threads when doing the couching. Going between them leaved little gapes which show the linen through and I don't like that. Splitting them (they are 2-ply) makes little gaps in the wool around the couching stitch so the only way seems to be splitting with a sharp tip of a crewel needle through the two strands and pinning it down that way.

31/2h 20 threads. Wove in lots of ends