Woodland Peonies Stitchscape

 I'm playing a little bit of catch up with my blog as there are several completed hoop Stitchscapes which I didn't write up about at the end of last year. Unfortunately for me, I've just tested positive for COVID-19 so suddenly I have an unplanned week of forced isolation and bed rest, with my meals delivered to the door and disinfectant wipes everywhere. I'm on day two and I am not enjoying myself (although luckily my symptoms so far are that of a bad head cold and nothing worse which is incredibly lucky. Hopefully it stays that way and I am very thankful to be triple vaccinated, especially with Baby Dotty on board!). 

Anyway, this hoop was finished in August 2021 and I'm pretty sure that the inspiration for this piece was the colours of the fabrics forming the background. In my stash I occasionally get organised and arrange the fabrics into colours and sometimes they just absolutely sing together with very little tweaking once I get the handful out of the drawer! It was initially put together as an example of layering for my Stitchscape workshops - I like to try and show different scenes and different layering options when I can as it helps students to have a visual aid - but as I get repeat students I also like to alternate these example hoops so they all eventually get stitched up and given their moment of fame. 

If you follow my Instagram account you'll also have seen that I don't always use the front of a fabric where the print may be the strongest. Because my tree fabric has these fabulous diagonals all going in the same way, it would have looked slightly odd so I turned the fabric over for the left hand trunk - which you now can't tell because I've satin stitched over the shapes - to make the pattern go the other way and even out the appearance.

This one is a 15cm/6" piece so it's a brilliant size to take on the bus as you can pop it in a bag with a few thread colours and just spend the morning commute stitching away in your own world. 

I seem to recall though that this one took a little while to reveal to me what it wanted to be. The vast majority of my pieces aren't planned; they are spontaneous and a tad gung-ho, with ideas coming eventually as I stitch other layers which perhaps are easier to translate into a texture. 

Usually with woodland scenes I will start stitching all of the background layers first, then move on to the trees so that I can make sure that there are no bubbles in the fabrics behind. If I've tacked it properly, on a taut hoop, then there are unlikely to be bubbles anyway but you never know! It actually doesn't matter which bit you start stitching on, or if you get bored of a layer and move on to something else for a little while - the tacking stitches will keep everything in place until they aren't needed anymore and then you can remove them. 

So, on the top layer I've got some long satin stitches covering the thin spikes that are printed onto the fabric, and the layer finished off with bullion knots to edge it. The next layer down is a lovely marled print almost and although I've filled most of it with seed stitches, there are some lighter areas of the fabric which I've left blank as a contrast. You don't have to stitch absolutely every area, or every colour as you are just enhancing what is there so, sometimes, the absence of a texture is as much of a texture in itself! (If that makes sense? Or is that the C-Virus talking?) 

This layer has been finished off with a row of french knots to hide the raw edges and help to give more of a fluffy, foresty feel, as if there are unseen trees behind. 

Underneath that we have quite a dark batik fabric which I've picked a complimentary dark colour for and gone around each of the shapes with a single strand of back stitch; again this has been edged with a row of bullion knots. 

For the layer below that - the blue and purple fabric, which is actually a print of huge Iris flowers - I was uhmming and ahhing about whether to cover this completely in satin stitches and pad the section out, or maybe fill the colour chunks with strands of long straight stitches going in different directions so that it catches the light in different ways....but in the end I plumped for something nice and simple as by this time I had an idea of what I wanted for the bottom layer and it was going to be busy so a clean contrast layer above would work better. 

The shapes have instead been outlined by whipped back stitch (back stitch initially stitched with a single strand and then a whip stitch (wrapping the thread around those initial back stitches) worked over the top to create more of a solid line. 

It didn't completely work with the edging of the fabric which ideally needs to be stitched down more to stop it fraying and bubbling out so I've then worked a running stitch just below the fabric edge to secure it, and couched a selection of the threads in the colours used on that layer. 

The fun layer of course is the one completely covered in woven wheel stitches! I have mostly ignored the pattern of the fabric underneath, which is a mixed ditsy floral in various blues, purples and greens, taking inspiration instead from the colours and just using it as a background for any gaps in the stitching. 

The woven flowers have all been drawn onto the backing fabric on the reverse of the hoop so I had some control over where they fitted and the size of each of them. I think there were initially three colours of blue used but then I went and added a whole load more flowers in the gaps in another, slightly different blue. The centres of the flowers are filled with french knots in varying shades of yellow to finish them off. 

I can't quite remember now which bit I did next, either the purple lazy daisies (detached chain stitch flowers), which do actually cover the printed flowers in purple underneath, or the metallic green purl loops. I'm still experimenting with using purl wires and The Mother gave me the most fantastic collection for Christmas which I have yet to play with, with lots of different thicknesses and textures! At the minute I've only used a smooth purl of about 2mm thickness but it's just so much fun. You buy it in long lengths and it's made of tightly coiled wire with a hollow through the middle so you can cut the wire into any length. I think in goldwork you are meant to lay it over some padding so that it lies flat, or flattish, on the fabric but I've turned them into little loops, stitching them over where the green sections in the fabric pattern are to make them a bit leafy looking. 

The layer has been finished off with a variegated colour thread worked in french knots along any visible section of the raw edge at the top, and also brought down into any gaps between the flowers and leaves which looked a tad empty. 

Leftover from making up my Emerald Isle Stitchscape kits, I have quite a few short lengths of the tapestry yarn in a couple of colours which worked perfectly with my colour theme here so, to create the leafy branches, I have first actually stitched some rough satin stitch/long stitch branch shapes which you can just about see poking out from underneath the fluff. The tapestry yarn has then been kind of stab stitched and left as loops rather than pulling the yarn all the way through to the back like you usually would (I think this is called moss stitch). I haven't used any kind of height gauge here so they are mostly different lengths, and any tangles have been left and stitched over a bit more to keep them in place. It's a bit wild looking but I think it has worked really well actually. The lighter colour has been used for the tree in the front and the darker colour for the two further back to create a sense of depth to the woodland. 

It was a little bit on the matte side at the top of the hoop after all of that tapestry fluff going in, so to help bring the top and bottom sections together I have also added some little seed beads among the tufts to match the metallic sheen of the leaves below. 

So, the stitch run down for this piece then; satin stitch, straight stitch, seed stitch, bullion knots, french knots, couching, back stitch, whip stitch, moss stitch (the stabby tufts), running stitch, couching, detached chain stitch, woven wheel stitch and beading. 

As a reminder, if you have created your own Stitchscape and would like to frame it in a hoop, I do have a picture tutorial on how I do mine, which you can find here.