Little Stumpwork Project

Last week I got some new embroidery books! I love getting them. There is always much to learn and see in them. One of them is the new RSN Stumpwork book.  It isn't a pattern book, but rather a book of stitches and techniques. The designs shown in the book are clean and more modern looking than a lot of the traditional stumpwork that I and many others have been doing. Anyways, here is a little project inspired by the book.

The leaves are a new stitch I found in the book. It's really cool how the leaves turn out. They have a little extra dimension without being a full-out wired shape. To be honest I found the book's instructions a little lacking. I'll be back with more on these leaves soon. I'll definitely be making more of them.

My ladybug has 4 layers of felt this time for a really nice rounded body. The little snail is my favorite. The body is a bullion knot with 3 different floss colors. The shell is 7 strands of 3 colors couched down in a spiral.

Bullions on the brain. I've been seeing a lot of bullion knots in the projects I have been looking at in my ever-growing pile of embroidery books. So I think this is the reason that I have included them in 3 places in this little project. Actually the pink flowers were going to be standard "berries" with french knots, but after I made a ring of knots, something said no, we are going to try something different. So it became rows of bullion knots and beads. I will say if I had known that project would lead me that direction, I probably would have made different color choices, because maybe the pink flowers are just a little bit strong, just a little though.  They are solid colors, but repeated in the project and with interesting textures, and so they work well enough with the other colors.  The third set of bullions are the little sepals beneath the pink flowers  or berries. When I added those, the whole thing looked much better.

So - the moral of this little embroidery story to not forget the details and not to forget interesting textures, they can really make a project! And don't forget to do something a bit unexpected now and then too. ;)

My books are wrapped up by the way, as they became my Christmas presents from Mr Floss Box. It was the only way to get what I really want for Christmas. ;)