Mamluk Counted Embroidery

I started a new embroidery challenge with my local group of SCA embroiderers last month after seeing Mistress Miriam's Mamluk embroidery class at Politarchopolis University. Mistress Miriam graciously shared her notes so that we all had a sound research base, and I've been quite excited about the opportunities for future projects. I want to do some non-counted pieces, but I thought that I should try some counted work first.

I haven't done any counted embroidery since my early teens (I started cross-stitching at about age eleven) and I have already learned a lot. I have spent more time unpicking errors than actually stitching so far.
I have learned
* that I had a false appreciation of how good I actually am at counting
* the medication I was on has affected my eyesight more than I realised
* I shouldn't try and do counted work when I need to concentrate on something else
* my recollection of how much I dislike counted work was underrated 😃

It has been a very stressful week with multiple catastrophic technical issues (which is probably not the best time to work on this type of embroidery) so there have been a lot of errors. I have re-started a couple of times. The base fabric is a very loose weave, so the black thread has a tendency to slide under the base threads. To combat this I am working over two threads rather than one.

I am slightly further along than shown in this picture; I am onto the next line of embroidery (which now has an uneven motif in one corner). I decided to leave the wonky mistake in as a reminder to myself to concentrate.