I am currently stitching the Carolyn Pearce Strawberry Fayre heart etui as a stitchalong project. This week, I am stitching the inner heart panels (there are four of them, all the same). See the end of this post for all the information you’ll need to join in!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ *** ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I thought when I started to stitch these inner heart panels for the etui that they wouldn’t take long. Ha ha! Stitching the same thing four times over does actually take a while….and it’s not all that interesting at times, either, to be doing the same motifs over and over.
Here’s the pattern that needs stitching four times:
As before, the drawn lines for the leaves and the berry placements look the same on the pullout sheet from the magazine, so I had to bear in mind that some of those ‘teardrop’ shapes would be berries, not leaves.
The actual stitching of the stems, leaves, and flowers, is done using the same stitches and threads as on the front and back panels, so the instructions in Inspirations issue 95 are quite brief for these inner heart panels – they just say things like ‘stitch the leaves as on the front panel’. This meant I was having to flip backwards and forwards through the magazine a lot, which became annoying. So, in the end, I spent ten minutes writing out ONE definitive list of the stitches and threads needed for each element. Then I could put the magazine away, and just refer to my own notes, which I found to be much less fiddly 🙂
I’ll briefly go through the order that I stitched each section – if you need more information about how to do these stitches, see the blog posts about the Front Panel, as I give more details when a stitch is first used each time.
This stem is done in chain stitch, as before, but looks much better once it’s been highlighted with the Whip Stitch and the Stem Stitch highlighting top and bottom.
Like this:
These little flowers don’t take long, and are very cute:
Instead of doing three types of filling stitches on these small leaves, I decided to do all three in Vandyke Stitch, as they are so small you can hardly see the filling pattern once they are completed.
The other set of three leaves was done as per the instructions, using Tied Wheatear Stitch.
My berries are improving, gradually….here is the felt padding in place:
And here is the berry with the completed Beaded Oyster Stitch. I’ve found that the best way to fill the area is to do the five stitches down the centre of the berry, and then ‘flood fill’ with more stitches up from the base to the top, doing both sides at once rather than left side then right side.
The Needlewoven Picots for sepals complete the berries:
Finally, I made the beaded forget-me-nots in two shades of blue:
This is how one panel looks, when completed. The lower part of each heart shape will be covered with the attached pockets for the smalls.
Here are all four panels, with their stitching completed:
They do look good, now they’re done, but it hasn’t been my favourite part of this project. It’s taken longer than I anticipated, and the repetition is getting boring! But my berries have definitely improved 🙂
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ *** ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~INFORMATION~~~
The Strawberry Fayre design, plus the complete list of materials, appears in Inspirations magazine number 95. The publishers do sell a full materials pack (not including the mother of pearl ruler though!), but it’s rather expensive, so if you can use your stash, and just fill in with bits and pieces, then so much the better! The magazine is published in Australia – if you live in the UK, as I do, it is cheaper to buy a back copy from Manor House Magazines, and save a lot on the shipping.
EDIT: The materials pack from Inspirations, and the magazine from Manor House in the UK are not available any more as at March 2018 – I don’t know if any more stocks will be available now, unfortunately. The publishers may bring out a digital pattern pack later, which they sometimes do with popular projects from their magazines, but we’ll have to wait and see…..
To read about this project stitchalong from the beginning, start here. The post about which FABRIC to use is here. The post about the THREAD SUBSTITUTIONS that I made, plus WHERE TO BUY the threads and beads, etc., is here.
To look up all the posts in this series in the sidebar, see under the CATEGORIES list, under: Embroidery / Full size (others’ designs) / Strawberry Fayre heart etui, or use the SEARCH BOX at the top of the blog, and search for ‘Strawberry Fayre’ to get a list of all the posts (but it’s in reverse order, sorry!).
I’d be interested to see images of how your project is progressing – please email large, clear, well-focused images to mail@janetgranger.co.uk Please bear in mind that any images sent may be used in this blog and/or social media such as Facebook or Pinterest.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Are you interested in doll’s houses and stitching? Then why not visit my website, where you can buy doll’s house needlepoint kits to make all kinds of soft furnishings for one-twelfth scale dollhouses. There are over 280 kits to choose from, plus chart packs, fabric project packs, tutorials, and lots of eye candy to inspire you! Kits are available on 18 and 22 count canvas, 28 and 32 count evenweave, and 32 and 40 count silk gauze, so there’s something for everyone – from beginners to experts.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Janet Granger's Blog 