Progress on the Jacobean Piece

Well, I finally got up the motivation to work on my Jacobean piece this week, and I actually spent two afternoons on it, so I have some good progress to share. I started with a simple element to make it easier for me to get back into it and used a lovely blue variegated thread to make these little woven wheel flowers:

I added a little teal bead to the center of each one. And then it made me feel that my first set of woven wheel flowers earlier in the piece felt a little unfinished without something in the center of them. So I used this same variegated blue thread to add little French knots to the center of those:

I like the contrast, and I think it's the perfect finishing touch for them.

Next, I moved on to that slightly daunting large flower at the top of piece — this one:

I did the first petal in the same type of battlement couching that I did on the large central leaf (you can read more about that process here):

But this time I used much brighter, warmer colors, and I really love how it turned out. I also did a whipped stem stitch around the edge.

Next, I moved to a petal on the other side of the flower and did some trellis stitching with stem stitching around the edge in similar but paler colors:

But it seemed too pale to me, so I decided to whip the outer edge in a bright yellow:

I liked it a bit better this time. The last step was to add my lovely peach beads to the centers of my little diamonds:

Doing these two petals was quite a lot of work because of all the precise measuring to get the right angles and because of the sheer number of details. But once these two were done, the flower became far less daunting because the other petals involved much simpler stitches.

At this point, I decided to add some contrasting colors to this flower to help it fit in with the varied colors of the rest of the piece. So I did this little lower petal in soft teal blues — just some whipped stem stitch around the border, a stem stitch central vein, and daisy stitch inner petals:

Then I decided to do the petal just above these two in seafoam greens:

I did the central vein in outline stitch using three strands of light seafoam green floss and then added a thin line of stem stitch to the right of it using two strands of a slightly darker seafoam green floss. The curlicues are in stem stitch, though, because it worked better for the curves. The outer edge is whipped stem stitch with pale yellow and soft seafoam green. The last thing I did was add a little row of teal beads along the right side of the vein line. I think it looks nice and provides a nice contrast for all the peaches in this flower.

The last petal I did during my stitching sessions this week was the one at the very top:

The central vein is outline stitch in medium periwinkle, and so is the border, but then I whipped the border in the light blue variegated thread. I stitched the tiny little petals in the same variegated thread, and I like how they're all slightly different colors but still go together. Here's how the whole piece is looking now:

I look at it, and it just makes me feel so happy. The colors are lovely and soothing, but also warm and cheery. The elements and the stitches are so whimsical and varied. I am loving it and I'm so happy I started working on it again. 😊