Thanks so much! Really appreciate the encouragement. (My main struggle has been placing themers/black squares… or maybe when to know that I am trying to force entries that will just lead to bad fill.)
just thought of something else: for 3D, you went with the French word for SWEDE instead of going for a reference to the fabric material? was there a reason for that? usually the cluing angle is to avoid foreign language references if there is already a suitable english word that can be used... this is a really good site that i use for help with my cluing: https://crosswordtracker.com/answer/suede/?search_redirect=True... it's a really powerful tool and you can also search for words that fit specific letter patterns by using question marks for the missing letters... for example, ?U?D? spits out a list of possible words sorted by frequency of use in published crosswords: https://crosswordtracker.com/search/?answer=%3FU%3FD%3F&clue=
I wasn't aware of a general norm to avoid foreign language references. I'm not sure I agree. (This was one of many interesting points that Natan Last made in his recent New Yorker article.)
My reason here was mainly to mix it up from what seems widely used (or over-used). Also, I prefer to eschew animal products in the grid (as I do in real life).