Middle Earth

I haven't done much 'embroidery' before, a few little things but nothing large scale, as I cross-stitch mostly.  So as usual I am jumping in the deep end and I am going to embroider a map of 'Middle Earth' from The Lord of The Rings.

So far I have found the map I want to use:

And started to transfer it across to some linen:

Which is more difficult than it sounds.  Even with the help of my Aunt's light box (Thank You) it is quite tricky to get the detail.  I have enlarged the original map about 300% but to get all the names in is going to be interesting, as this is quite a detailed version of 'Middle Earth'.
  Although it is not all across on to linen yet, I have stitched a few words so that I can get an idea of how it is going to look:

I've tried a few different sized words just to get a feel for the different texts and am quite happy with these so far.  I am particularly happy with the 'Sea of Rhun' as I think I managed the curls on the letters quite nicely. 
 The larger writing is going to be slightly more difficult, as it is a lot thicker that the small writing.  At the moment my plan is to stitch across the letters so that I can get the right width throughout.
Also I am still undecided as to how I am going to stitch the mountains:

Since they are shaded I want to make sure that I get the feel of them right.  However at the end of the day, "my" map does not have to look exactly like the original, but I am extremely excited about this project, as I am hoping that when it is done it will look quite stunning on the wall.  

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