The first motif I want to stitch for my five-sided box is the Primrose and Thistle motif, adapted from the book ‘Embroidered Flowers for Elizabeth’ by Susan O’Connor. I made a scan of the design outline from the book, shrunk it down to the size that I wanted, then taped that onto my light box. The horizontal and vertical guidelines you can see in the image below are on the paper design outline, not the fabric. The fabric I am using is a pale cream linen from my stash – no idea where I got it from, but it’s old! Using a very sharp pencil, I traced over the design lines, and got a really clear version of the design onto my fabric.
Each design motif is quite simple, and doesn’t use many colours – this one uses ten. I wonder if this may be a problem, as the shading looks like it might be a bit too coarse at times, but I’ll have to see if it needs ‘tweaking’ later.
The stems are worked first in stem stitch, and then the leaves are outlined in split back stitch. The lower bright green leaf has satin stitch worked over the split back stitch edging.
I did a lot more on this before remembering to take any more photos, sorry! The thistle flowers were fun to do – just straight stitches, worked in a fan pattern until the flower head ‘looked right’. With hindsight, I think I should have used more than just the one shade suggested in the instructions, as it looks a little bit too dense, in only the one colour. Also, the primroses have come out a bit too ‘green’ – the colour looked more yellow when I picked it.
This picture shows one of the full-face flowers completed, and one in progress.
I like working trellis stitch, so I was pleased with how the stitch came out on the thistles
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Janet Granger's Blog 
Well done again Janet. I admire all your projects and skill and only wish I could keep up with you. I’m already looking forward to your next blog.
This is lovely!=)
Beautifully neat stitching. You might find you’ve got the energy to change the primroses to yellow when the other sections of the box are stitched, or you might find that they don’t look nearly so green when they are with the rest of the design.
I’m afraid I never have the *patience*, never mind the energy, to change anything once it’s stitched, unless it’s an out-and-out hideous failure!! I’m hoping the greeny-yellow will kind of ‘fade away’ once the whole box is finished, and it won’t notice much 🙂
Turned out beautifully!
This is wonderful! I really know how much work it takes to do something like this. Well done.
This is lovely work as usual, and I’m looking forward to seeing the rest of the designs.