Plantagenet Wreath - roses (part I)

Just the roses left to embroider.

You may remember that when we looked at the colours to be used for the roses, it included a shade of pink, Madeira stranded cotton no. 0303.  Although the roses are going to be (mostly) white, I'm using a bit of pink too.

The stylised rose design has a feature that I've always taken to be the top of each petal turned over a little.  I need to highlight this in some way, and so as the embroidery will be applied to a dark red velvet once it's completed, I'm picking it out in a complementary shade: the pink.

I've stitched over the lines of this detail in split stitch:

And a close-up:

If this is an overhang, then there should be a bit of shadow cast underneath it onto the petal below; I'm adding this using small stitches in one strand of the pink and one of the off-white used for the outlining, no. 2402:

and in close-up again:

Next time, I'll fill in the rest of the roses.

Plantagenet Wreath - outlining the roses

The last bit of outlining, this time for the roses.

These are quite fiddly, involving three stages and colours:

That pink shade will actually come into its own later; for the outlining I'm using the yellow and off-white, and the darkest of the three shades of green we looked at earlier.

Firstly, the centres of the roses, in a slightly darker yellow than the broom flowers, Madeira stranded cotton no. 0106:

Next, the roses themselves, in no. 2402:

And finally the little green leaves between the rose petals, in no. 1412:

So that's everything outlined - I can start filling in the colour next.  I'm looking forward to it!

Plantagenet Wreath - outlining the flowers

The stems are outlined, and next it's the broom flowers.  These have a small pale green cap at the base, which are going to be worked in the lightest shade of the greens we looked at last time, 1401.

There are 100 broom flowers - that doesn't have any significance, it's just a result of having quite a formal layout for the design.  It does mean I can quite easily keep a mental note of the percentage of flowers completed, though!

The little caps outlined:

The flowers themselves are in a strong yellow, no. 0104:

The flowers themselves outlined:

The layout for the flowers is regular but the flowers themselves are not: they were all drawn separately and are all slightly different sizes and positions, to give a more organic look.  I want the look of this piece to be formal but not rigid.

Just the outline for the roses to go.

Plantagenet Wreath - outlining the stems

Annoyingly, I forgot to take a photo of the fabric off the paper it had been on when it was painted and put onto a frame ready to start, so we'll just have to skip that bit and go straight to it with some stitching on.

I'm not going to be doing much in the way of shading in this project, so while I'll be using three shades of green stranded cotton, it's not with a view to producing any shaded effects with them.

Here they are:

Using the middle shade, no. 1410, I've outlined the stems in split stitch:

I'll outline the broom flowers next.

Shaded snowdrop - stems

Just the stems to go.  Using the lighter of the two shades of green, Madeira no. 1410, I added a few stitches in highlight areas:

I then extended these areas using one strand of 1410 and one of the darker shade, 1411:

I then filled in the rest in 1411:

Finished!  Cutting out and making up next.

Shaded snowdrop - flowers and roots

With the outline done, time to start filling in.  The snowdrop flowers first, using Madeira stranded cotton no. 2402.  I'm not doing any shading here, just the off-white:

The stems and leaves are going to be slightly more involved so I'll come back to them; roots next to get them out of the way:

The roots are in no. 2114, and again don't have any shading.  I am going to use some shading on the stems and leaves, though, and I'll start that next.

Shaded snowdrop sample - outlining

With the design marked onto the fabric, it's time to start stitching.  This time, I'm going for naturalistic colours:

That's Madeira stranded cotton no. 2402 (off white) for the snowdrop flowers, 1410 and 1411 for the leaves and stems, and 2114 for the roots.

I outlined the flowers with spilt stitch first:

It's not that easy to see in the photo, but the flowers are outlined, honestly!

Then the stems and leaves, using the darker of the two greens, 1411:

Then finally the roots:

I'll start filling everything in next.

White snowdrop sample - filling in

Quite a lot of stitching but none of it very interesting, so I'll cover it all in the one post.  Still using the same colour, I've filled in the entire design in what's supposed to be long and short stitch but I suspect has really turned into split stitch.  No shading, just white.

Here's some of it:

A bit more:

And a flower:

And the other flowers:

Done!

Cutting out and making up next.

White snowdrop sample - outline

For this I'm only using one colour: white:

That's Madeira stranded cotton no. 2401.

Part of the outline in split stitch (against a black background so you can see it):

And the rest:

I'll start to fill it in next.

Silver snowdrop sample - outline

A short post for a fair amount of sewing: using split stitch, I've worked a double row of stitches around the outline of the design, and just inside it:

I want the silver mesh to form the design and so be as visible as possible, but it also needs to be held firmly in place so stitching is needed, so a compromise is needed.  Now the outline is done, I can do the proper stitching next.

Acanthus leaf sample - colours and outlining

With the design transferred and painted, I put it on a frame ready to stitch:

(sorry about the rather harsh lighting in that photo - I'm not sure what happened there).

I'm using three shades of Madeira stranded cotton: nos. 1908, 1910 and 1912.

As the palest shade, 1908, will be the most used of the three, I used that to outline the design in split stitch:

Next time, I'll start to fill it in.

'Jungle Book' slip case - Mowgli (again)

Here's where we left things last time, supposedly with everything finished:

It's not right, though: compared to the palm tree, Mowgli just disappears.  I just worked the figure in outline as it was too small and fiddly for goldwork, but it needs more than that.  So, to make it stand out more, I've filled in the outline with split stitch in a dark gold-coloured stranded cotton, Madeira 2213:

I think that works better, don't you?

Apple tree fire screen - stem shading update

As I mentioned before, I wasn't at all happy about the shading, or lack of it, for the stems, and needed to do something to improve them.  Well, I think I have!  Or started to anyway - there's still a lot of stem to do.

Still, I'm happy with the approach.  I over-stitched the pale areas in a couple of stems at the top first with one strand of the middle shade, 2211, and then stitched over that with one strand of the darkest, 2213.

Here's the result:

I'm far happier with that, which is a relief.   I'll now go on and do the rest the same way.

Apple tree fire screen - all the stems filled in

Sorry for the long gap between posts: blame a combination of being busy at work and watching the World Cup.

Well I've (finally) completed the stems, and here they are:

I say 'completed', but the shading really isn't working at all and something needs to be done about that.  I have an idea what to do, but I'll have to try it and see if it works.  Let's hope so!

Apple tree fire screen - half the stems filled in

I've got half of the stems filled in in Madeira stranded cotton 2213, and I have to say it's not looking like I'd wanted it to.

Here's the loop at the top:

Hmmm... it's not right, is it.

Giving it the benefit of the doubt, I carried on:

No, definitely not right.  The palest shade looks too pale, far paler than it does in the packet, and the transitional shading between it and the darkest one is hardly noticeable at all.

Something is going to have to be done about this, but I don't want to start any remedial work on half of it, as it could end up looking unbalanced: better to complete the stems, and then sort them all out in one go, when I can see how the full piece is working.

Or that's the plan, anyway.  We'll see how it goes.

Apple tree fire screen - more shading on the stems

I've added a bit more shading, and have gone round the edge of all the stitching on the stems in one strand of 2211, the middle shade, and another of 2213, the darkest of the three:

Next time, I'll fill in the rest in 2213.

Apple tree fire screen - stitched stems

After my failed attempt to use Italian tubular mesh ribbon for the stems, I've reverted to regular stitching for them.  What a relief!

I'm using three shades of Madeira stranded cotton, 2208, 2211 and 2213:

I outlined the edge of the stems with the darkest of the three, 2213, in split stitch rather than stem stitch as I just like it better:

As the apples are highlighted as though with light coming from the right, the highlighting on the stems needs to work in the same way, so I drew on lines where the highlights should go (no photo, sorry).  Using two strands of the lightest shade of the three, 2208, I then added a couple of rows of split stitch in the 'highlight' areas:

For some reason it looks far lighter on the piece than it does in the packet!

To start to blend the shading in, I next went round the first set of stitches with another row, this time with one strand of 2208 and one of the middle shade, 2211:

More shading next time.

St Cuthbert's Flowers: everything else

Apologies for not having posted anything in ages, but I'm back now.  Even if I wasn't blogging I was sewing, and have finished the St Cuthbert's Flowers panel.  As I've kept you waiting far too long already I won't drag it out any further - this post will cover the rest of the project to completion.

So, last time I'd got as far as the outline of the flowers and leaves in buttonhole stitch.  The next step was to fill them in.  First the leaves, in split stitch:

And then the flowers, in split stitch for the petals and French knots for the centres:

They don't look like much like that, but that's not the finished item - they're cut out and applied to a background of red cotton velvet.  Flowers first this time:

Then the leaves:

The white tacking stitches show the centre of the background fabric, to allow me to get the cut out pieces aligned correctly.

They're rather fluffy round the edges like that, from the by now rather frayed linen, so I edged them in couched gold thread, tucking the fluffy bits in as I went:

Much neater!

I then added stalks, also in couched gold:

The gold threads are couched using the same shade of green as the leaves, to tie it together.

With the tacking stitches removed (or most of them - there's one left in the centre that I missed, though I did spot it later and took it out):

The client specified the finished piece needed to be 54cm x 54cm (21" x 21"), to fit an existing frame.  As it wasn't to be a panel to be hung on its own, I stretched it over a piece of mount board I cut to size, rather than anything stiffer.

Pinned and the corners mitred:

Then the back laced:

Finished!

Even though it's to go in a frame, I also covered the back, using a gold brocade, though unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of that.  It won't be seen, but it finished it off far more nicely than leaving the lacing exposed.

It's now with the client, who seemed very pleased, which is always nice!