Old work: The Tablero game board

I was asked to post about this, so here I go. This is my first SCA embroidery, and about fourth embroidery in my life, if one does not count that monstrosity from fifth grade at elementary school. I have a vague memory of making this around 1999.

It was a dark and stormy night, like always, when I got a sudden idea of after a couple of mundane cross stitch embroideries to try a stitch I had seen pictures of years ago. I grabbed a piece of cloth and some thread that I had and started stitching. I don't remember how long it took to make this. I tried many different stitches out of my head, no sources or anything, and added pieces of fabric to it as I went stitching. After it was finished, I tried to write a documentation for it, with mixed results.

Cotton on linen, at least 8 different stitches, mainly satin stitch and bokhara couching. 32x32cm

The whole game board with dice. My husband made the dice from rose wood.

A close up near the centre.

A detail from one of the corners. There are seams under the light brown embroidery.

The back side. Quite neat, if I say so myself. There is not a single knot in this work. Now I need a lot of coins to start playing! There is a drinking game version of the game, so I have 7 neat little cups made out of rose wood to finish this set.

I have entered this in Arts and Sciences competitions a couple of times. I have got critique because of it being an embroidered game board, when those were supposed to be made out of wood, and because of the lack of knots (!).