I’ve reached the part of this ‘Flowers for Elizabeth’ embroidered sweet bag from Issue 51 of Inspirations magazine where I am about to start stitching the honeysuckle and forget-me-not flowers in the bottom left hand corner of the front panel.
When I traced the original design onto my fabric, I was aware that the honeysuckle flower and part-flower were ‘detailed’ (to put it politely), but when I came to actually stitch them, I realised that the design was actually more like an Escher drawing – it was really an impossibility to stitch the flowers to make them look real, as some of the lines were missing, and extra ones had been added that made no sense. And by then, I’d traced them onto my fabric as shown on the design sheet, so I had to make the best of it!
I kind of simplified the petals as I stitched them, but it was a pain, and I didn’t enjoy this part of the embroidery. I know honeysuckle flowers are rather ‘random’, messy flowers, but I wasn’t sure that this was captured successfully in the rendition of these.
The next part was the forget-me-nots alongside them. I was pleased with how the smaller buds came out (made from French Knots with two strands of Au Ver a Soie silk thread). But the larger ‘full on’ flowers I think I made too spaced out, so they have ended up looking a bit spindly. They are stitched by making five Granitos Stitches in a star shape first, then adding Straight Stitches in between, and then one small French Knot to each centre.
So, not as successful as the pansy or strawberry flowers, but it’s coming on – that’s all the flowers stitched now. Next up are the leaves.
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Janet Granger's Blog 
This is a close-up. You will see that when you finish the project they will look absolutely fine in the general context.
I started this project many years ago, and because I did not like the colour I was using for the pansies, I kind of left it. So it is not in a very advanced stage. Subsequently, I bought the exact colours for everything. Seeing you do this design, makes me feel like returning to it. Yours is coming along very nicely. It is a delight to see it develop. My fabric is not as nice a colour as yours. It is a more (light) caramel silk as that was all I could find in the shop at the time. As usual, your embroidery projects give me great joy.
Thanks very much Isobel! I’m hoping they look better when it’s all done. I also found it hard to find a good fabric to start with – here in the UK, it’s difficult to get a good choice, isn’t it? I eventually bought the called-for silks to do this, even though I have enough stash to open a shop 🙂
As you say, it is indeed very difficult to buy the right fabric. One can buy online, but it is difficult to see the exact colour in a photo. With your ivory damask you can’t go wrong. The colours of the threads look beautiful on it. Nice contrast.
Thank you for sharing your beautiful work with all of us!
You’re welcome! I hope it tempts you to have a go 🙂