Daffodil ATCs

In an odd sort of a way, I have been enjoying my unexpected week away from the world due to having Covid-19. It's been tricky to just sit in one room, and not overly comfortable either (golly how I miss the sofa!) , but actually it's been bliss to be able to just sit and sew and not feel guilty about it. I've also managed to get quite far ahead with my Stitchscape Swap ATCs and am now just about to start the May ones! 

This theme is for March and is 'Daffodils/The Coming of Spring'. Handily enough I have a Daffodil fabric print which was just absolutely perfect for this theme, and I've teamed it with some spring-like greens and blues, and a lovely Marigold-esque pattern to give even more of a Spring feel. 

These actually took a long time to do - amazing how something so little can be so time consuming, but those Marigold flowers, created from rows of detached chain stitch worked in circles, took a fairly long time to do. I actually drew circles on the backing fabric, poking my finger through the material to draw around my fingertip where the flower centre was, and then drawing rough circles around that to give me a guide on where to work my chain stitch rows. 

Each flower uses three colours of thread, the outer layer uses a darker yellow, with a couple of rows of a mid yellow and a pale yellow in the centre - inspired by the colours actually on the fabric print itself which followed a similar sort of pattern. The centre has been filled with pale green french knots which worked really nicely. What I like about them is that they are positioned differently on each ATC so each one has its own personality. 

The top fabric layers were much quicker to do! I started on the striped layer, working rows of back stitch in a pale green along the pale green stripes, and then whipped back stitch (all in a single strand for delicacy) in a darker green along the dark green stripes. It's nice to have a slight change in texture on those columns. 

The blue layer above didn't need much, and I toyed with the idea of not adding any embroidery to it but decided in the end to just quickly run some rows of running stitch in a matching blue shade, following the line of the bullion knots that I've edged the striped layer with. 

The spotty fabric on the third row is a lovely batik fabric which uses a darker blue for its spots than appears anywhere else on the card so, although I've covered each spot with either a french knot, or rough satin stitches, it actually works a bit better now I've stitched a fancy trimming over it because there is less of the dark blue to draw your eye. 

The trimmings were added almost after the embroidery was done, which is fine but for the top trimming (with the lovely fluffy loops) it stuck out like a sore thumb over the top of those chain stitch petals so I've tried to make it more natural looking, as well as hide any rough edges of the layer below that may have been missed, by adding some french knots along the bottom, sneaking upward into the loops as slightly smaller knots (two twist as opposed to the three twist knots along the bottom). This has worked really nicely so that's a relief!

The Daffodil fabric at the bottom is just beautiful though. The original fabric has all of the Daffs the same colour but I've switched this up by using three different colours, a darker yellow for the full frontal flower and randomly positioned mid and light yellows mixed together for the side-on flowers. The trumpets have all been stitched in cream. Each petal has been sort of satin stitched, although I've kind of just gone over and over the shape so that the printed petal is covered and it's created little bobbles which is rather effective! At the ends of the trumpets, and the centre of the darker flowers I've added a little bead just for a bit of glam and sparkle. 

The leaves have been roughly gone over with straight stitches in a single strand of green to give them some texture, and the stems whip stitched in a slightly darker colour to give them a bit of contrast.

 I think these have turned out really well and, I know I'm really far ahead from the other ladies in the group but I'm so looking forward to seeing what everyone else comes up with for this theme!