Wildflower–Ribbon & Stump Work Tutorial Panel 4 Part 2

So we left this with just the Beetle daisies & French knots to do to finish off.

So using Groves & Banks Fiery Orange Ribbon, its just a case of making small straight ribbon stitch for the petals like this

I also added a couple of straight orange stitches with in the green leaves. The to finish just make French knot centres in the middle of the daisies with DMC 420.

This is the 4th panel finished

What we have so far

Next Panel is Irises, Rock Roses & forget me not's.
This panel involves a new technique using soluble canvas, so we will be working off the main fabby for a while, dissolving the canvas from the flowers and then attaching to the main project.

Until we meet again :)

Wildflower–Ribbon & Stump Work Tutorial Panel 4 Part 1

Panel 4
Agapanthus,Hollyhocks,Delphiniums &Beetle Daisies.

To save time, I have gone a head with basic stitches we have covered before, (Trying not repeat myself) So we first start with the Agapanthus, the stems are twisted ribbon long stitch, the flowers are made with clusters of 6 tiny straight stitches in a star shape. The buds are padded satin stitch, the leaves are twisted ribbon straight stitch.

In this picture, the pink Agapanthus leaves are not done as I will wait till the delphiniums are done first. I have also made a start on the stem of the hollyhock which is apple green perle thread couched down.

The next flower is the hollyhock, these are made with cast on stitch with pink perle thread. Cast on stitch is a raised embroidery technique used often in Brazilian embroidery. Its like knitting with your needle & finger pulling the working thread through the cast on wraps the same as you would for bullion knots which we looked at in an earlier panel.

So this is one cast on bullion - looks interesting but is not hard if you already have mastered the bullion, the principle once the wraps are

made is the same. In the next few photos we will finish off this first flower

First off bring your needle up at A


Take a stitch above the first finished side of the petal like this

Keep the working thread below the needle, now put your finger through the loop of the working thread

And twist your finger towards you so the working thread crosses

the slip the loop on the needle, use your fingernail to catch the needle so the stitch slips straight on


This is your 1st wrap, do the same till you have 20 wraps, then its time to pull the needle through the wraps the same as a bullion

Keep pulling slowly, keeping tension until the wraps slide down the working thread and you can gently pull tight, The stitch will naturally curl and then you can shape round the 1st stitch to form a flower - take the needle down at A

now each flower is made up of 3 cast on stitch petals and the wraps vary, so the 1st stitch is 16 wraps, 2nd is 20 wraps and 3rd is 24 wraps. I kept adding cast on flowers till half way up, as the flowers get smaller cast on stitch becomes too big I used bullion stitch flowers using 5 or 6 wraps. Once all the flowers were complete, I used 6 strands of 292 yellow DMC for French knots with 5 wraps, and we end up with this.

 

Once all the French knots are in your can faff about with the flowers and tidy them up.

Next comes the Delphiniums.

Starting with the stem which is the same process as the Hollyhock's, long stitch couched. Using a cornflower blue ribbon, I cut 14 lengths at 4cms and 6 lengths at 3 cms.
REMEMBER WHEN USING RIBBON TO SINGE EDGES TO STOP UNRAVELLING

Ribbon cut & singed

I used DMC 794 matching thread and came up in the centre of the delphinium marking using a 4cm length and made a running stitch down both sides and along the bottom of the ribbon, I fed the ribbon down the thread to the fabric and ruffled it up to make a rosette.

Once you have your rosette close to the fabby, catch the other end of it and plunge in to the fabby, You get this effect

Tidy it up and use the needle to secure it next using the same thread do the same again in the next placement, I used the longer 4 cm ribbons for bigger flowers at the base and then changed to 3cms ribbon nearer the top. Now preference time, you can either add a French knot to the centre of each delphinium or a small bead!!!

I kept filling both delphiniums, then added the leaves for the Pink agapanthus as I could push them under the petals, and then below the hollyhock & delphiniums I used khaki ribbon to make a few ribbon stitches for petals.

At this point I was on a roll but had to stop as the Beetle daisies require fiery orange ribbon which I need to get.

Threads used, DMC 974 / 292 - apple green 368 anchor perle
Needles - Chenille 18 - Crewel 8 -Straw -3
Ribbons - Groves & Banks - cornflower blue /Khaki / light green organdie

next time Beetle Daisies & Panel finish.

Wildflower–Ribbon & Stump work Tutorial Panel 3 part 2

In this part we work on the lily & ladybird.

Starting with the basket, create long stitches at intervals on the basket,stem stitch the outline and then fill the basket as we did for last one

Now that we have a full basket you can see the woven pattern better than on the 1st one.

Next is a wound floating stem the same as I did for panel 1 - if you remember I didn't like that floating stem too much so this time, I took the wire to the back and couched it down.

Next we work on the buds, this is detached chain or fly stitch, which we have work on before
so starting with the yellow 3mm ribbon, come up at A down at B

Up at C & down at C or very close too

Now to give the bud some extra oomph I'm going to cover it with the same organza ribbon as I will use for the lily petals, and then to finish, use the same green ribbon for the leaves to make a detached chain / fly stitch around the bud

you can see one I have already done, here, the organza ribbon is ribbon stitch which we have done on the narcissus, so come up at A and go down at c just inside the top of the yellow ribbon

You can see one already finished

Next as we're already using the organza, I worked on the lily petals, now these are also ribbon stitch, so nothing too difficult here. come up in the middle of the lily take the ribbon to the petal edge and make a ribbon stitch, you can make it as poufy as you like here

Once the lily petals are done, just fill the center in with French knots & pistils (French knot on a stalk) which we have also covered before. I used 1 & 2 wraps to the French knots.

All that remains to complete the Lilly is twisted straight stitch leaves which we have covered before and a fly stitch in the same green around the buds to make them look like they are just opening.

Next is just the ladybird to finish and the ground, the lady bird is padded satin stitch, in red & black, make a few French knots inside the ladybird, then stitch in red from the front to the back of the ladybird over the French knots, bring the needle up just outside the pencil line and take it to the back just outside the pencil line. Change to black, make a couple of satin stitches at the start of the ladybird and a couple along its back, then make a few odd French knots to depict his dots and 2 straight stitches for his legs

Changing to DMC 420, I made a line of stem stitch for the horizon and a few seed stitch (1 back stitch) around the base of the basket

And that is our 3rd panel finished,

Stitches used: Whipped spiders web, twisted straight stitch,Straight stitch, Ribbon stitch, Seeding, French knots, Couching, Pistil stitch, fly stitch, grab stitch, Stem stitch, Detached chain stitch, Satin stitch.

Threads: DMC 420, 429, 310, 349, 834, 368

Ribbons: Groves & Banks - 3mm Lemon, 3mm Khaki, 6mm Khaki, 7mm Organza Orchid

No 26 gauge cake wire (florists wire does the same thing).

Next Time Panel 4 - Agapanthus, Delphiniums & Beetle Daisies.

Wildflower–Ribbon Stump work Tutorial–Panel 3 Part 1

Panel 3 Narcissus, Lilly & ladybird.

Supplies: DMC 420 / 834/ 729 - 3mm groves & banks khaki ribbon &3mm Groves & banks cream ribbon.

So starting with the Basket of the Narcissus, Using 1 strand of 420 I made vertical lines down the basket and then stem stitched around the outline. The basket is done with whipped spiders web stitches in rows, so carrying on with the same thread, and starting on the right side at the top, take the needle under the 1st bar,

bring the needle back over the 1st bar again but make sure the working thread is below the needle

then gently pull to gather up the thread

keep going across the basket, at the edge make the last stitch then take your needle through to the back then across to the right starting a new row.

(had a malfunction with camera here so a bit of a break.)

Once the basket is woven just fill the top with some French knots, 1 strand, I used 720 for this, and then it was on to the leaves, these are twisted ribbon stitch which we did in a previous panel, so no explanations needed.

with that done out the way it was time to tackle the narcissus flower, these are ribbon stitch done with cream ribbon, and very easy to do.
Come up at the inner edge of the petal at A, lay the ribbon across the petal guided by the pencil marks then put the needle in the ribbon at B just below the petal edge, we are stitching through the ribbon

remember when working with ribbon, you must use a needle with a big eye so that the ribbon can go through itself or the fabby smoothly.

Make ribbon stitches for each petal, working over the leaves, doing 2 stitches per petal to cover, the end result looks like this

Now make one large French knot in the center of each flower with 729 & 3 wraps and then fill in small French knots surrounding the middle one with 844 &1 or 2 wraps to fill the centres.

now here you can see in the basket a few more French knots are needed to fill up

I left it like this when I began the twisted ribbon leaves & stems as I didn't know what the placement would be like till it was done, so now I can just fill up the ground with more tiny French knots which I will do when I move on to the Lilly basket.

And the Narcissus is complete, it didn't take too long to do either.

next time, The Lilly & ladybird

Wildflower–Ribbon Stump work Tutorial Panel 2–Part 2

So we start where we left off on the snail by finishing the body

the body is quite easy to do, I outlined the shape with small stem stitch in DMC 729, then filled it with long straight stitch, the tentacles are also straight stitch, I added a small bit of stem stitch in DMC 369 under the snail so he's not floating in mid air.

Now its on to the Sorghum, using 1 strand of DMC 368, I made long straight stitch from the base to the tip of the stems and couched it down.

you can see here that because its straight it doesn't follow the pencil lines, this is fine, as you come to couch this stalk, just push the stem over the pencil lines as you couch it in to place

Couching

Couched

next is to work on the leaves, which will be chain stitched, with some whipped just to give a bit of definition
so you bring your needle up at the base of the leaf, take it down in the same hole you came up in or very close, as you pull the working thread though it creates a loop, don't pull tight, leave that loop and bring the needle up in the middle of it and then pull the working thread tight but leaving enough slack so that you can go down in the middle hole you came up in to make your 2nd chain

Make your loops follow the direction of your pencil markings and when you need to finish, on the last loop when you come up in the middle, instead of going back down in the middle just make a little stab stitch at the end to finish the chain like this

Do the same for each leaf and then its time to whip, using 1 strand come up at the bottom of your leaf and just whip your needle under & over the chains

Now I moved on to the flowers, now these are made of French knots, stab stitch (1 tiny back stitch) & Pistil Knots, which are basically French knots on a stalk. Pistils are so easy to do, come up where you want the start of the stalk the same as a French knot, wrap the thread around the needle and instead of going down near the hole you came out of as if to make a French knot, take the needle 1 cm away and go down, you still get the French knot, but now its on a stalk , I dotted tiny stab stitches & French knots with 1 wrap in & around the pistils for this effect

Once the flowers were completed, I just added some French knots at the base of the Sorghum & some straight stitch grass at the points indicated by the arrows

And this is Panel 2 completed

Stitches used in this Panel were: Twisted straight stitch(ribbon), Fly Stitch (ribbon), lazy daisy (Ribbon), French knots, Padded satin stitch, straight stitch, chain, stitch, Pistil stitch, stab / straight stitch, chain stitch, whipped chain stitch & couching.

So in the panel we worked with ribbon, and it is not as hard as you might think just using loops & twists, I hope through my clumsy explanations ribbon work is not so daunting and your inspired to have a go, just grab a doodle cloth and a spare bit of ribbon and have a go :D

Next panel is Narcissus, a Lily & a ladybird.