Cushion Cover in Huck Embroidery or Swedish Darning - Series 1

These are the working instructions for this Huck embroidery design. It's almost 30 years old. The threads are starting to fray thanks to my mishandling. I could not find (as in I don't know where I can buy)the fabric used for this style of embroidery. But I noticed from other online images that this can be done using matty fabric as well.

A friend of mine recently dumped her needlework supplies on me. This fabric was part of it. I consider it a precious gift.

So, here I go.  The image below is a close up of the finished embroidery. I plan  to make this into a cushion cover.

Materials Required:

1. For this particular project, I've used 15.5" X 15.5" cross-stitch fabric (matty cloth). Also note that the fabric I've used here is not even weave. The design has a slightly different effect on even weave fabric.  The orange diamonds for instance won't be as elongated as they appear here.
2. I've used all 6 strands of Anchor stranded cotton throughout. I used a little more than 3 skeins of golden yellow and grey and a little more than 2 skeins of green and orange. These colours were not my first choice.  But then, I have a stash of thread I want to use up. But, in the end the piece turned out okay. Everyone at home likes it very much. Then again, they like everything I do. So...
3. I used tapestry needle for two reasons. One is the eye of the needle is large enough to accommodate all 6 strands and two, the tip of a tapestry needle is blunt and therefore through the raised yarn in the fabric without catching and pulling the fabric.

Method:
This design is worked in 4 steps. So, I'll explain in them in 4 posts. But before we begin, we need to prepare the fabric for the embroidery. Read 'How to Prepare Fabric for Counted Thread Embroidery' and prepare your fabric.