Flowers for Elizabeth embroidered sweet bag: 9 – stitching the border, and the initial on the back

This is how far I’ve got with the ‘Flowers for Elizabeth’ sweet bag that I am stitching from the design in Issue 51 of Inspirations magazine. I’ve been stitching the border recently, and the initial for the reverse side of the bag.

The border is composed of two rows of Interlaced Chain Stitch. It’s a simple stitch to do – you stitch the Chain Stitch line first, and then take a new thread (in a different colour, in this instance), and interlace the new thread down each side of the chains, without going through the fabric, so that the chain stitch ends up looking bi-coloured. It really helps to use a tapestry needle, and not a sharp needle, when doing the interlacing!

It is important to get the direction of the lines of Chain Stitch correct, as when you interlace the sides, it highlights the direction somewhat. I started in the top left and bottom right for each colour of border line, working outwards from those two points around the bag’s edges. That is, I didn’t start in one corner and go all the way round. Does that make sense? Hope so!

Once I’d done the inner border line, I couldn’t resist adding the little sequins, rather than waiting till last. These are tiny ones – only 3mm diameter. I had to buy what seemed like millions to get hold of these at all (from Etsy.co.uk), but they are very pretty. Larger ones wouldn’t have looked as dainty. The instructions called for 2mm sequins, but I couldn’t find those anywhere.

The outer green border was then stitched like the inner border, so now it’s complete.

I’ve just noticed, as I’m writing this, that I missed describing the little ladybird on the small leaf in the lower left hand corner at the time that I stitched it. That was stitched after the Satin Stitch for the leaf had been done, mainly by eye as I couldn’t mark the shape on the fabric due to the Satin Stitch of the leaf itself. It’s worked in Padded Satin Stitch for the body, with the dots, legs and head in Straight Stitch.

In the magazine’s instructions, I felt that the next part was a bit of a cop-out. It just says to ’embroider the leaves, strawberries, flowers buds and tendrils in the same manner as the front’. What it doesn’t tell you is that you have to design it yourself! They give you a basic alphabet outline to start with, which needs enlarging, but all the flowers, buds, leaves and strawberries have to be added by you…..

It’s not so difficult for me to design something like that, as I do embroidery designing for a living, but I really think they should have bothered to design the letters, or at least design something generic as well for people who couldn’t design their own.

Anyway, here’s the letter J that I designed for mine:

This is only three inches high, so the embroidery has to be quite fine. The strawberries are about 3/8 inch diameter, but I still padded them with two layers of Satin Stitch padding in the same way that I had for the larger ones on the front of the bag.

The other elements were stitched as on the front, too.

I’m really pleased with how this turned out – it’s very pretty, but still readable:

Seen from this sideways angle, you can see how the padding really makes a difference to this piece.

That’s all the embroidery done. Next up is the assembly…never my favourite part, but I want to see this finished now!

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Flowers for Elizabeth embroidered sweet bag: 8 – stitching the large and small leaves

Now that I’ve stitched all the flowers, buds, and strawberries on the front panel of the ‘Flowers for Elizabeth’ sweet bag (from Issue 51 of Inspirations magazine), I’m ready to start stitching the large and small leaves. And there’s quite a lot of those in this design!

As with all the other elements, I had already outlined each shape with Split Stitch, using one strand of Au Ver a Soie silk thread.

So it was simply a case of working Long and Short Stitch shading over the whole of the large leaves, starting at the outer edges (and covering the Split Stitch as I went, to make sure I got a smooth outline).

I decided to do all the lighter green first on all the large leaves, and then do the darker centres in one go, too. That took quite a long time.

I also stitched the smaller light green leaves as I went over the design. These just needed Satin Stitch to be worked over the whole surface, angling the stitches in to the centre vein of each leaf, so they were quick to do.

The little pansy leaves were worked in the same way, in the lightest grey green.

The single honeysuckle leaf had one small area of the lighter green.

Then I went back to the large leaves, and filled in with the darker green (as in the far right hand large leaf). To complete each one, I stitched a line of Stem Stitch in brown down the centre vein (as on the left hand large leaf). This helped to disguise any scruffy Long and Short Stitch shading that didn’t quite cover the fabric properly!

So, here is my front panel, now that all the embroidery on the main area is completed. I’ve still got the border to do, and the sequins to attach to the background randomly. It’s turning out really lovely, and I’m very pleased with this.

After the border (which shouldn’t take long), I’ll be stitching the initial on the reverse of the bag, too.

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