I’m totally in love with my new textile postcard. I’m still not sure if it’s a cherry or an apple blossom. First I thought it’s an apple, but pink stamens made me a bit suspicious and now it looks more like a cherry for me. Anyway, flowers of both species are similar in shape and it’s the same way to go about stitching them. I used my favourite silk ribbon embroidery technique to brighten up the print.
Most of us make New Year resolutions, and I’m not an exception. Every year I promise myself that I won’t start any new stitching project until I finish numerous ones I started before. Frankly there’s quite a few unfinished pieces in my so called ‘Project Box’. Every year I break my own promise and start a new piece that later on ends up in the ‘Project Box’! It definitely isn’t working this way and so this year I’ve made a resolution not to start anything big and focus on the contents of the box. I’m making progress actually. For example, I finished one goldwork embroidery that had spent two years in the box waiting, and there’s a couple of embroideries I’m currently working on. This branch of forget-me-not flowers is one of those pieces.
I stitched this piece just before Easter, but couldn’t find time for sharing it. We moved house, at the end of March, then it was Easter break, then it was never-ending struggle with boxes all over the place, and finally yesterday I finished unpacking my studio stuff and put all the things on their places, so I can comfortably do my job again. The rest of the house is still a real mess though, but at least one room here — my studio — looks nice and tidy. To celebrate the fact I’ve arranged some photo shooting today whilst it’s still spring here and my seasonal embroidery hasn’t got completely outdated. If you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen it already there. I managed to post a photo of the unfinished embroidery just before moving.
This is a postcard I made. I love simple ways of finishing embroidery pieces, and I’ve got an idea of making a collection of silk ribbon embroidery postcards. They would look lovely pinned to a wall in my studio, and it does take little time to complete such a small embroidery. In fact it took me about two evenings to finish it including time I spent making the design and choosing materials!
Britain is in daffodil bloom and even in my shady garden the flowers have opened. I have not met a person who doesn’t love daffodils. They are pure sun and its so much joy to walk past yellow flower carpets. Daffodils are truly messengers of spring, and when I see their strong stems and leaves that show over ground, I know Spring is almost here, and the most beautiful season of bloom is ready to come.
Here is a tutorial on how to easily embroider beautiful daffodils with silk ribbons. The tutorial is well suitable for those who have not tried silk ribbon embroidery before, and want to give it a go.
Thinking of February it’s hard not to think about Valentine day and hearts. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Valentine card embroidered with silk ribbons, and I thought it would be an interesting challenge to design one. I love such sort of challenges when there’s a need to create something for a specific occasion using specific techniques and materials. It gives my brain an exercise as it’s not an easy task to make a nice design that doesn’t take lots of materials, time, and effort when someone makes one trying to follow a tutorial afterwards. So… I hope you like it and if you haven’t yet tried stitching on a piece of card, this is a perfect opportunity to give it a go 🙂
To make a card like this, you’ll need:
I played with 2mm silk ribbon today and stitched a lovely tiny bunch of snowdrops! The tallest flower is just 4 cm high. It turns out that smaller bunch is even easier and quicker to embroider that ones I stitched with 7mm and 4mm silk ribbons a week before (I posted a tutorial earlier if you missed it).
Silk Ribbon Tutorial – Tiny Snowdrops
This time I got lazy and didn’t transfer the patten onto fabric, so I didn’t follow the steps of my own tutorial strictly and went the other way round. The flowers were stitched at first, not stems and leaves as it is said in the tutorial. It’s quite easy to start with flower heads when there isn’t any layout on fabric. I worked flowers as described in the tutorial, but used 4mm white silk ribbon instead of 7mm one. For some snowdrops I stitched three petals, for others just two. Then I worked calyxes on top of each flower with 2mm wide Pastel Green silk ribbon and a straight stitch again as it’s suggested in the tutorial.
Snowdrops are one of the most lovely woodland flowers. They’re beautiful spreading in white endless carpets making our walks in woods so much more enjoyable. I love how rich green shades of their leaves bring forward white delicacy of flowers. It’s amazing colour combination that is easy to replicate in silk ribbon embroidery. There’s only one stitch needed to create real-looking flowers. It’s a straight stitch with 7mm (1/4 inch) wide silk ribbon for petals and 4mm (1/8 inch) wide one for leaves. Follow this easy tutorial to embroider a bunch of those beautiful flowers.
To stitch flowers like these, you’ll need:
Thinking of stitching Christmas tree with silk ribbons? Here is an easy project to give you an idea how to use ribbons for Christmas stitching. The piece is quite quick to make, and it’s a perfect project if you’ve never tried silk ribbon embroidery before. There are only two stitches here: backstitch for a trunk and brunches with embroidery floss, and straight stitches with silk ribbon for a realistic tree finishing.
Christmas tree stitched with silk ribbons
Ribbon stitch is easily the most important stitch in silk ribbon embroidery. If you learn how to do it, it means you know almost everything there is to know about stitching with ribbon. The stitch is used in great many silk ribbon designs and patterns, mainly for stitching petals and leaves. It is very hard to create a pattern without this stitch, so you can hardly find one. There are are slight variations of the technique if you need a pointed petal or a slanted leaf, but all of them use the same steps as for a regular ribbon stitch. Here is a small tutorial on how to make a regular ribbon stitch with silk ribbon (click on the images to enlarge):
Continue reading
There are a few ways to end a stitch in silk ribbon embroidery. There aren’t any strict rules which method to use in any particular design or with any particular stitch, so you can pick out the one you like the most and stick just to it, or you can alter them whilst stitching. Some methods work only for narrow ribbons, so the options are quite limited with 13mm ribbons, but as for the most popular 4mm silk ribbon any method works. All in all, it’s a good idea to look through all the ways of ending stitches with silk ribbons, so you are fully armed with the basics.
After I finished working on the first tutorial I just could not stop playing with spider web roses, so I ended up with another cushion! This time I arranged roses in a circle and added felt leaves among them to get the depth of a rose bush. I didn’t think twice about finishing, as my first cushion needed a pair. I followed my own steps by attaching strips of green fabric around the ribbon flowerbed and making the second cushion in similar style. This one is turned out more vivid and rich in colour, but they both make a perfect pair on my sofa. If you have been contemplating giving your sofa a fresh look, this could be a great pattern to start with because stitching the ribbon roses is quick, and sewing the cushion is even quicker!
Continue reading
Earlier this week I posted a tutorial on how to make straight stitches with silk ribbon, but I think you would agree that nothing is more boring than practising a new technique without a pattern or even an idea of what you’re stitching. Personally, I hate the thought of polishing a skill if it don’t end up in a nice piece, which I can frame and proudly hang on the wall. So I came up with an idea of making a series of posts with small, nice designs, that will give you a hand in learning basics of the silk ribbon embroidery. These designs will be easy in making, which is handy, for example, if one needs a gift at short notice.
There already has been posts about stitching spider web roses and finishing the final piece in a cushion. Now here’s next tutorial for mastering the straight stitch. I am going to show how to embroider a tree with silk ribbons.
Straight stitch is very common technique in ribbon embroidery, and there is a good reason for it. It’s one of the basic stitches which is very easy to make. Once you get the idea, you can embroider flowers, leaves, shrubs, and trees. The photo below might give you an idea of what good use you can put straight stitch into. Note that even the flower middles are tiny straight stitches here.
Continue reading
If you have been following updates of my blog, you probably recall the tutorial on those ribbon roses I posted last week. Back then I had a plan to finish the piece as a cushion. So here it is, sweet and pretty! To be honest with you, I finished it in no time at all, but it took me a while to put together the tutorial for this sewing adventure.
