The pattern is in the shop now. Yay! And I thought I'd do this post as a companion to the pattern with unmercifully close up shots of my stitches as a sort of guide ~ though my suggestion is that you go wild and stitch it any way you like! Now, besides my easy favorite backstitch, here's a refresher on some basic embroidery stitches:
{ image is from The New Encyclopedia of Modern Sewing 1946 }
First, I embroidered the letters in backstitch using two strands of floss. Then I added thickness to random parts of the letters, lastly adding a little green as a subtle highlight. After the text was complete, I embroidered the flowers in by area, using the pattern copied onto tracing paper as a guide. One at a time, to mark the center of each flower, I poked a pin through the tracing paper onto the fabric, and wiggled it a bit. This way I knew where to begin each flower. For the greenery, I poked the pin at the start of each stem and at the end. With a pencil, I lightly drew a curved line to connect the pin holes on the fabric and then started stitching. This method is useful if you feel comfortable "winging" it. If not, tracing the pattern onto your fabric using a light box or up against a window will give more accuracy.
I think the pics do a lot of explaining ~ for example, you can see that there are three flowers made completely of french knots clustered tightly together (I used 3 strands on these). The greenery is made entirely of backstitches and lazy daisies using two strands. For the dark greenery, I used a single strand of floss. The two flowers on top are made of narrow lazy daisy stitches (2 strands) that I've accented afterwards with a single stitch in a complementary color at the end of each petal. The center is made of french knots and I found that I prefer them not to be too perfectly circular.
The little purple and pale pink buds were made using short and long fill stitches over an outline. (Only the purple bud is shown in the above pic). There are seven tiny pale peach flowers, using the satin stitch around a french knot in dark slate blue/grey (using 4 strands).
The pale mint green leaves are my fave ~ these I drew on lightly with a pencil and embroidered using the fishbone stitch.
Start with one straight stitch at the end of the leaf and thereafter follow with diagonal stitches that overlap every so slightly in the center. Also, make sure to stitch just outside the pencil line to cover up any marks.
I stitched the three pointy blue petals on the upper right hand side just as I did my leaves. I outlined them in blue. The long narrow lazy daisies at the base are filled with a single stitch of dark green. The french knots in purple above the pointy flower were made with two strands of floss.
The big yellow flower was embroidered with short and long stitches, then I went around the outer edges with the pale yellow floss in stem stitch, twice. The center of green ray stitches is then accented by white french knots (I used 4 strands for these).
The big red flower is my fave. It consists of overlapping lazy daisies in poppy red (lay 'em down thick, I say) with a center of mustard and hot pink french knots (in 4 and 3 strands).
So, that's how I did it! I realize there's a lot of info here and you may still have questions. Please leave your questions in the comments and I will answer them there ~ in hopes that the info may help someone else, too. And lastly, a little bit of embroidery eye candy I found on flickr...
1. Embroidery Love, 2. Pink Hollyhocks worked in Buttonhole Stitch, 3. Princess I, 4. Hand Embroidered Flower Bed Hoop Art - No.2, 5. Flowers close-up, 6. flower embroidery #3, 7. Sheep close-up, 8. Beetle and berries stumpwork, 9. flower embroidery detail, 10. Embroidery Project, 11. Peony Dahlia, 12. princess 5, 13. Orange and Grey brooch
Created with fd's Flickr Toys
Cheers and happy stitching! xo amy
