How To's

Tuesday, 26 September 2017

Spring Comes Softly Stitchscape


It's been a little while since I finished this little Stitchscape but in the excitement of telling the story of my holiday jaunt to Wales, I didn't get around to showing you the finished article. So here it is!
The colours are quite muted in this piece, and as mentioned in my last post about this embroidery, it has been based on some new fabrics that appeared at work that I absolutely fell in love with and just had to use! The title comes from the different shades of green, being lit up by the yellow light of an early Spring sunrise. Can you just see the very tips of the sun's rays about to pop over the horizon?


Some of the stitches are really hidden by the bold pattern of the fabrics. The spotty green layer, for example has running stitch and vertical whip stitch which you can feel more than you can see- it's like a secret stitch which I quite like the idea of- hidden texture.


The bottom couple of layers took the longest amount of time to complete- especially that grey layer with the splodges completely covered with the tiniest of satin stitches on every spot! It was totally worth it though as it feels amazing under your fingers.
The flowery layer at the bottom has been filled with little tiny detached chain stitch flowers, fly stitch flowers, cross stitch flowers and french knot flower centres, with each colour matching the printed flower underneath. The dark blue for the bullion knot flowers was chosen to try and match with the background of this fabric, and then been tied back in with the sunny pale yellow french knot flower tops which make me smile.


My favourite layer is the green flower layer with its whip stitch stems, vari-colour detached chain leaves and little yellow french knots. After much deliberation I decided not to weight this layer down with bullion or french knots lining the top edge and I'm glad I didn't as I think it would have looked too heavy. I would definitely work on this fabric print again!


The overall effect is very muted, laid back, toned down, pared down. It's not an all singing, all dancing piece to get your heart racing, but is quietly stylish and sophisticated.... I'll stop going on about it now.
Just quickly then, before I go, the stitch run down for this piece is as follows: bullion knots, running (kantha) stitch, back stitch, whip stitch, detached chain, french knots, couching, seed stitch, fly stitch, straight stitch, cross stitch and satin stitch. No surprises there!


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