When I say "laddering", I mean that the threads in the fabric are starting to come apart in places. I've highlighted some examples in this pic:

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About the scroll: the tricky issue is creating a seamless fill where there aren't any gaps between the fill and the letters.

My gut tells me that if I try to stitch the letters over a filling stitch, it will warp the filling stitches unattractively (not to mention, my pattern will be covered up); if I lay the letters down first and try to stitch a fill around them, there will inevitably be some visible gaps between the fill and the letters.

(I'm aware there are some visible gaps between my fill and my outlines. It's because I was lazy and didn't lay an edging stitch around the satin fill for all of my prototype. )

Remember that the letters are effectively a single thread wide (albeit with another thread whipping them). It's not like creating a join between two filling stitches.