Panies and Tulips, silk ribbon flowers – a-stitching-good-time.com

Stumpwork Pansies, Silk Ribbon Tulips and a stumpwork flying insect.

I sure did drag my feet getting started on stitching this panel of the Di van NieKerk design.

pansy wip

The Pansy petals and leaves.

I am not much for free hand tracing of designs onto fabric. So I wasn’t overly happy when I realized I would have to do so for the pansy petals and leaves for this panel. Going through my drawer of fabrics that other day I happened upon a beautiful bright white tight-weaved backing cotton fabric from Di van Niekert’s website, placed it on top of the page photo for these panies and was delighted that I could see through enough to use a wash-out-able pen to trace the leaves and petals. That worked fine, as to transferring the design, but when I tacked the fabric onto a stitching bar frame I realized the fabric had a wonderful feel but was too springy and needed a backing fabric. I choose to use 28 Count Antique White Cashel Linen, which is a Zweigart 100% Linen. It is a very open weave but the linen threads of the fabric lend a nice structure strength. Actually I purchased a large piece (18 x 36 inch) of this Zweigart fabric from 123stitch but never have used it as I find the fabric is glarry, has too much of a sheen for my liking.

The WIP step shown in the above photo is where I have tacked the two fabrics (using the Zweigart as the backing fabric) onto bar frames and have started work (long/short buttonhole stitch) on the pansy petals.

pansy petal

The instructions suggested to work the petals and leaves in stranded cotton and silk threads. I have on hand a lovely shaded Caron Wildflowers cotton thread, color is Iris (209). Its thickness is about 2-3 strands of DMC stranded cotton, so I only need to work with a single thread of it.

These petals are unwired so I am quite interested to see how much I can shape them once they are snipped out and added onto the panel.

Below shows the finished pansies. I’ve have only done a few pieces of stumpwork so I haven’t learn my likes and dislikes working this form of embroidery. I think these pansy petals might look more interesting if one or two of the lower petals within each pansy had wire along the edge (in order to give some lift).

Stumpwork Pansies

Silk Ribbon Tulips

The silk ribbon tulips were fun to work. I used Di Van Niekerk silk ribbon, 7mm color 24 and 4mm color 126 for the leaves of the tulips. The silk ribbon used for the petals of the tulips is YLI 7MM color 27.

Tulip Beads

The photo below shows a cranberry color 7mm glass bead that I placed inside each of the tulip flowers.

Flying Insect

My stumpwork flying insect isn’t the best looking. I used wide orange color organza and stitched finger-shaped wire around the edge to define each wing. The purple body color of the insect is Chameleon Thread stranded cotton C8 Black Berry. I wrapped it around a folded piece of cloth covered wire. The color thread around the edge of each wing is DMC metallic 3852 gold color. For the two gray antennaes I used Simply Shaker — Gentle Art stranded cotton color 7067, Garden Gate.