Illuminated Floral Stumpwork Panel – 8

Having finished making all of the detached petals for the pinks on the gold diamond on Alison Cole’s design ‘Illuminated Floral’, I now needed to attach them to the main fabric. I have been putting off this bit, in case I ruin it!

I decided to shape each petal with tweezers a little *before* attaching them to the fabric, as I felt that they might get loosened again from the gold fabric diamond if I tried to manipulate them after attaching them. Even then, sometimes I squashed one while I was trying to attach the next one! All the wires for one flower need to go down the same hole, so things get a bit fraught at this stage. A number 18 chenille needle is used like an awl, to poke a large hole in the fabric, and while the needle is still part-way through the fabric, holding open the hole, the wire of the petal is poked through. Then, the wire needs to be securely attached at the back – folding back the wire on itself helps here, to prevent the petal from wiggling about.

This view of the back of the stitching shows the wires (in white) once tacked in place with tan coloured cotton thread, doubled back for each petal.

Finally, a tiny gold bead is sewn in the centre of each flower, to finish it off, and to hide any untidiness caused by attaching several things in one place! I used the tweezers again a little, to arrange the petals again at this stage, and nothing fell off, so it must have worked  🙂

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