Category: Long and short stitch

Oak leaves – stems and acorns

I’m finishing off the embroidery today! For the stems, I used Madeira stranded cotton no. 2213 for a bit of highlighting and 2214 for filling in the rest: For the acorns, I used 2208, again for highlighting, and 2209 for the rest: And that’s the embroidery done!  Right at the start, I mentioned that I…

Oak leaves – third and final green

Finishing off the leaves with the final shade of green.  This is comprised of one strand of Madeira stranded cotton 1411 and one of 1412, filling in all the space left. The first leaf: And the second: And the third: The veins up the centre of the leaf look dark, but that’s just shadow cast…

Oak leaves – the second green and shading

Time to add a bit of shading. The leaves are going to be light on the outer edge, getting a little darker as they head towards the centre; the first stage in the shading is to add another round of long and short stitch using one strand of the first colour, Madeira stranded cotton 1410, and…

Oak leaves – the first green on the leaves

The first two greens, actually. The ends of a couple of the lobes of each leaf in the design fold over, and I stitched them first, using Madeira stranded cotton no. 1409 (which I’ve just realised I didn’t take a photo of last time, but never mind. It’s a pale green): I’ve going the stitch the…

Plantagenet Wreath – roses (part III)

The roses are finally finished!  Sorry that they’ve taken so long, but I got there in the end. Last time, I’d filled in half of the 20 roses; I’ve now done them all, and here they are: They’re not quite finished, though: the little green leaves (or whatever the correct name is – does anyone…

Plantagenet Wreath – stitching the roses

Still slow progress on the roses, though I am getting there.  In the mean time, here’s a closer look at stitching one individual rose. The shading is already done, of course, so here I’m just filling in the rest with the off-white. This is one of the larger roses, so there’s a bit more stitching…

Plantagenet Wreath – roses (part II)

Other things have got in the way a bit recently, so I haven’t got as far as I’d hoped with the roses.  Still, I have done half of them, which is something. And here they are, filled in with Madeira stranded cotton no. 2402: The full wreath: I’m going to be busy for the next…

Plantagenet Wreath – roses (part I)

Just the roses left to embroider. You may remember that when we looked at the colours to be used for the roses, it included a shade of pink, Madeira stranded cotton no. 0303.  Although the roses are going to be (mostly) white, I’m using a bit of pink too. The stylised rose design has a…

Plantagenet Wreath – broom flowers

The broom flower blossoms next.  No shading, just yellow. The first fifty: And the second: Although the layout is quite formal, all the flowers are slightly different – I didn’t want the design to be rigid, and so while the positioning is uniform, I drew each flower freehand. Here’s a close-up of one set, to…

Plantagenet Wreath – stems

All the outlining’s done, so onto the filling in. I’m starting with the stems, in the same shade of green, Madeira stranded cotton no. 1410, as used when outlining them.  No shading here, just filling in the full stem in the one colour using long and short stitch. There are ten sets of stems in…