Phase 1: Bamboo Leaves and Pine Needles

On day two of Japanese embroidery classes this past weekend, I learned how to do bamboo leaves and pine needles. Technically, bamboo leaves are supposed to be stitched by starting on one side of the leaf's base and then stitching up to the point of the leaf and back down the other side to the base. But this is apparently very tricky to do because of the way the stitching angle changes as it goes around the tip. 

So Mary Alice suggested I start at the tip and then work my way up the fatter side to the base. She told me to use long stitches — longer than I thought I would need — to achieve the correct look:

I did just what she said, but these stitches felt surprisingly long. The stitch at the tip was about 6 or 7 mm. The second stitch was shorter (maybe 3 or 4 mm) because it hides under the first stitch — something called a grandchild stitch in JE — and is there to help you transition the remaining stitches to the correct angle. The other stitches along the length of the leaf were all about 8 mm long. I measured pretty closely, and I'm glad I did because it turned out pretty well on the first try. It's fairly smooth and even and well filled. I didn't pad this leaf, but I was using a 3->1 twisted silk, which felt full enough. When I do some other bamboo leaves in flat silk, though, I probably will do some self padding to lift the front leaf or two a bit.

Next, I went back to the tip of the leaf, hid another grandchild stitch under the first stitch, this time on the left side, and then did very long (8 mm) stitches up the left side, leaving a one-point open space between the left and right sides of the leaf:

At one spot, the open space is maybe a hair too big, but Mary Alice said it was fine and it was better than not having enough space, which is what most people do on this piece. She liked the distinct vein line, so I left it. And I do think it looks nice.

Next, I moved on to the leaf to the right. As you can see above, the curve of the vein line on this leaf is opposite to the curve on the first one, so I stitched the left side first because you always stitch the larger side (the concave side) first. Mary Alice told me to stitch into the cave, which is a good way to remember it: 

This leaf was a little more tricky to stitch. I didn't have any more difficulty starting on the left side, and I did 8 mm stitches again, but on the top left portion, where this leaf is partially hidden by the first leaf, I had a small struggle. I tried to do a grandchild stitch, but I didn't hide it well enough under the previous stitch, so I lost some of my one-point open space. I don't think it looks too bad, though, and Mary Alice didn't think I needed to take it all out.

On the right side, I had to lengthen my stitches a bit because it was such a narrow area and because, at the top, I had to cover the left and right sides of the leaf since I couldn't get the correct angle on the left side. My stitches on the top right are more like 9 mm long. But Mary Alice said I did exactly the right thing. She thought they looked very nice, and I was pretty happy with them. And actually, despite my concerns about doing gold instead of silver, I'm really loving how bright and warm the gold is.

Next, I moved on to the pine needles. Each needle is two straight stitches. They start side by side at the top, and the first one goes right down on the line, about two-thirds of the way down the pine needle. The second stitch goes all the way to the tip of the pine needle and covers up the lower part of the first stitch:

This picture is a bit blurry, but hopefully you can see that each pine needle is a bit wider at the top and then narrows at the tip. Here's another photo I took after I finished the first three clusters:

On some of these clusters, I will add in a bit of gold, to show where the light hits them. I'll do that on some of the green bamboo leaves as well, but those will be done in flat silk.

I only did a half day on my second day of classes (because my apartment won't clean itself unfortunately). But I've learned enough about how to do plum blossoms, bamboo leaves, and pine needles to keep me quite busy until January. It will be blissful to have that week off between Christmas and New Years and just stitch to my heart's content. 😍