Silversands: Wildflower Ribbon Stump Work Tutorial–Panel 7

Panel 6 - Red Hot Pokers, Arum Lily & natal Lily.

Stitches used: Couching / Overcast Stitch / Loop Stitch / Straight stab stitch /Satin Stitch / Detached Blanket Stitch / Long and short Blanket Stitch / Detached Chain Stitch / Long Bullion Stitch.

Materials used: cake wire, DMC 368 / 760 White - yellow paint. / white felt / grease proof paper / hoop

Ribbon - Groves and banks - green / light orange / pale yellow / pink

Starting with the Red hot pokers, first I took the cake wire, measured it against my design on the fabric and cut 10 lengths of wire, I ran 2 lengths from the base up to the pokers, couched in place then overcast stitched to the ground fabric. Next I inserted the other wires (one at a time) and secured it on the back and wrapped the DMC (2 strands) around the wire till they were covered. leave long tail threads to secure the free floating stems once I had bent them in place with the design.

Next it was time to start working on the Poker its self, this is made up with the ribbon loops, to get the same sized loops, I laid a long doll needle on the design, brought the needle up below the doll needle and took it back down above it, so that a loop was created over the needle. I carried on doing this in rows, moving the doll needle up as I went to the next row, I started with pale yellow ribbon, changing to orange half way up, tapering the loops to fit the shape ending with 1 loop at the top of the poker.

I completed the 2nd poker in the same way and then bent to shape the wired stems and secure them, ending with this

The end of the leaves look tatty here but I went back after and tidied them up.

Next was the Arum Lily, this flower is stumpwork. So we start by drawing 2 leaves on greaseproof

these are cut out and then tacked to white felt.

The cut them out of the felt, remove the greaseproof, draw veins on the felt just to give you an outline and then tack them to the ground fabric, now these can be covered in satin stitch, the stem of the leaf and the main vein are done in detached blanket stitch. You do this by stitching long stitched to the shape of the vein then doing blanket stitch over the main vein and you end with this

Next is to work the lily, so once again, draw the shape on some scrap fabric, mount in the hoop and edge the outline with detached long and short blanket stitch like this

You then fill the middle with long and short stitch, to get a nice point I always use a fly stitch to start off to make that point crisp, do the same for the 2nd lily and you get with this

Now you need to cut these lily's out, so cut as close to the edge of the stitching as you can, I then took a piece of cake wire, and dipped the end in yellow paint to make a stamen,

when that had dried I put it in the lily and curled the bottom of the lily over the wire and secured with a few stitches.

I laid the lily in place on the ground fabric and made a few stitches in white thread to secure it, then changed to the green to couch the stem wire down.

i did the same with the 2nd lily then used the green to overcast the stem wires.

Next is the Natal Lilly, the stems are made with bullions ( we have covered this before) some of the bullions are 45 wraps, some are 50 wraps, you need to use a milliners needle for bullions because the needle does not taper so the wraps will slip nicely off the needle.

I then used the pink ribbon to make short flat stitches for the flowers, I then used DMC 760 to make small seed stitches and small French knots (2 wraps) around the base of the Natal Lilly.

I then changed to to DMC 368 and made some small seed stitches around the base of the pokers and went back and did some more securing of the free floating stems of the red hot pokers just to make sure.

So we end with this