Bloom and Grow

Oh how I love hand stitching and embroidery.  I have had this design in my head for weeks, but I had not found the time to do anything about it, what with packing felt kits, being mum and the usual stuff that gets in the way, you know how these things happen.  I was determined that this week WOULD be the week.

I love this phrase, for me I think of my children as they get bigger, like flowers, they bloom and grow.   I wonder what it means to you?

I had a colour scheme in mind from the outset, it had to include red (my favourite colour) soft pink, raspberry, robins egg, and olive green and then as I stitched, I introduced a darker green and a soft pumpkin.  I have found myself using pumpkin more and more in recent months,  I think it adds a grown up feel to the design, less shabby chic.

Here's a close up of some of the stitches that I used, the leaf stems and the lettering is stitched in my favourite Back Stitch, so simple to do, although if you prefer I think the lettering would also look lovely in Stem Stitch or even Chain Stitch. 

 The butterfly wings are Flat Stitch, which is simply done by alternating from each side, small little straight stitches.  As I also do when I'm stitching Satin Stitch, which I used for the little orange  flowers, I sewed the outline of the butterfly wings first in Back Stitch, which gave me a guide to follow. The body and antenna's are stright stitches, with French Knots at the end.

This flower is my favourite.  The petals are made up of lots of Lasy Daisy stitches, with the cente piled high with French Knots.  Do you see what I mean about the pumpkin, doesn't it look gorgeous with the raspberry.  I should also mention at this stage that I use Anchor cotton stranded embroidery threads.   I used 3 strands for the embroidery, with the exception of the French Knots, where I used all 6 strands, so that they were nice and plump.  If you wanted a more delicate look, then you could use 2 strands, but I will still plump up for the French Knots.

The little loops for the leaves and the details at the points on the letters, were also formed using single Lasy Daisy stitches.

The blue flower is a combination of Back Stitch for the petals and then using a slightly darker shade of ice blue, I first stitched long Straight Stitches down the centre of the petals and then I added lots of smaller Straight Stitches to form the centre of the flower.  The leaves are simply filed in with straight stitches in the olive gren for contrast.

So here is the exciting bit, 'Bloom and Grow' is now available to purchase as a PDF embroidery pattern.  You will receive a copy of my hand drawn "Bloom and Grow" design, the mirror image, an Anchor embroidery colour guide and a suggested stitch guide, although as I have said already please do feel free to substitute both colours and the stitches to make it your own. 

It is currently available HERE and  HERE in my new Etsy shop.

Happy Stitching!