Thread Painted Flower

Well, that was a long delay in between posts. 😏 It was partly because I was still dealing with some health issues and partly because I was working on a somewhat involved project that I didn't want to blog about in lots of stages. But I am now prepared to get going again.

In my last post, I mentioned I was working on another, more involved fabric box, this time with an embroidered lid. Today, I will show you the design I stitched for the lid, which is an elegant little thread painted flower that is a slight variation on a design I found in Trish Burr's The Kew Book of Embroidered Flowers. I used somewhat different colors, lengthened and curved the stem, and added some leaves at the base of the stem. Here's the little sketch I made myself as a stitching pattern:

I didn't want anything too busy, and this simple flower seemed just right to me. Thread painting isn't my strong suit, but Trish's book is full of helpful tips, so I gave it a go. I started with the central petal and chose five shades of purple from pale lavender to deep plum, which I stitched in long and short stitch. Here is row 1:

I probably didn't angle those stitches correctly, but I felt like they should angle that way because of the shape of the petal. And, as is my wont, I just kept going — row 2:

And row 3:

Frankly, I thought it looked pretty good at this stage, so I stopped worrying about my stitching angle and just pressed on — row 4:

And the last color was row 5:

I was really thrilled with how this petal turned out. The blended colors look so natural to me. Flush with my success, I completed all the other petals:

I was happy enough with the top three petals, but I didn't like the two lower ones. The blending on the right petal wasn't subtle enough, and somehow, the left petal ended up way larger than it was supposed to be. I don't know how these things occur, but I couldn't live with it. So I painstakingly cut and removed all the threads from those two lower petals. (Is there anything more tedious than removing thread painted stitches? They're so crammed in there that it takes forever to get them all out. Sigh.) And then I re-stitched them both:

Much better this time, I think. They're more even in size, and the shading is more gradual.

Next, I used split stitch in pale greens and yellow-ish green to stitch the central stem and leaves, with a little padded satin stitch for the pistil at the top:

After that, I used varying shades of brown in long and short stitch to stitch the base of the flower:

And then I added the sepals below that in light green long and short stitch, with a slightly darker green split stitch border:

I loved this little flower at this point and kind of wanted to leave it. But it did feel slightly unfinished, so I kept going with the design from Trish's book and added some stamens in very pale yellow, using a couched line for the filament and French knots for the anthers:

And finally I added the bullion stitches to complete my little flower:

I honestly don't know what part of the flower those bullion stitches are meant to represent, but they were there, so I did them! 😂 And the flower does feel more complete like this. But I kind of miss being able to see so much of my thread painting, particularly on that central petal where it was so nicely done. It seems kind of a shame. But I still do think it's a lovely little flower. And at least I can look back on pictures of my thread painting underneath. 😉

In my next post, I will show you the completed box that this little flower was for. I really think it's charming, and hopefully you will like it as well.