Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Sunflower Crewel Embroidery - Preview Day 3

First off - let me remind any of you local folks but the Webs Tent Sale is this coming Saturday and Sunday. I will be having a booth on Saturday at the "Fleece Sale" from 10 to 5. I will be selling our Leyden Glen Lamb and some other goodies if I can get myself organized. Here is their site for more info.

Back to my Sunflower Pillow project. The last sunflower I stitched was inspired by the maturing sunflower blooms. As sunflowers bloom and age, their outer rings become more textured. This is a Stella Gold Sunflower - another favorite variety of mine. You can see its outer ring has lots of texture. 



Here is another sunflower - variety unknown - with its center beginning to take on a rounded and textured appearance. 



This is the largest sunflower in the pillow design. It took a lot of stitching but it was fun to make over the days I was selling at the Farmers Market. The outside petals were stitched in stem stitch packed tightly together.


I used Turkeywork to give the texture to my outer ring of my third sunflower. I didn't cut the Turkeywork - just left it looped. Here is a detail, showing a side view of the looped Turkeywork. As you can see, I used two different shades of brown in the needle at the same time to give a multi-color look. Towards the center, I changed the colors a bit. Turkeywork takes a lot of thread. 




For the center of the sunflower I used French knots. I used multiple strands to get larger knots. I built a swirly pattern with the darker brown to mimic the natural pattern of the center of a sunflower. Then I filled it in with a gold color. At the very center, I used a light green color. 



For the leaves, I decided to let the fabric show through to give a little extra visual texture. I used random cross stitch. To create the jagged edge, I used fly stitch. The center vein was created with open chain stitch. 






I teach Crewel Embroidery on-line on Craftsy - use the following link for half off the price of the class because you are a blog reader: 
www.craftsy.com/ext/KristinNicholas_3938_H

I am also offering an advanced Crewel Embroidery Class here at the farm in August. Info here.) 

8 comments:

WildflowerWool said...

Love, love, love the crewel embroidery. I have just started to play around with embroidery again and I'm hooked. The only problem is it cuts into my knitting time ;)

Cinderellen said...

I haven't done crewel for a million years, but uou make it look fresh and appealing again.

Cinderellen said...

I haven't done crewel for a million years, but uou make it look fresh and appealing again.

Lyn said...

gorgeous!
xxx

Unknown said...

Your embroidery is gorgeous. Please fix the link. It takes me to a page within your blog which doesn't exist - not to Craftsy.

Kristin Nicholas said...

Link fixed. Thx for letting me know.

Unfettered Knitter said...

Hello Kristin!

It was such a pleasure meeting you on Saturday--I'm the one that talked your ear off :-)

I'm really enjoying your Color by Kristin. So many people don't take the time to actually READ knitting books, but I am very much enjoying reading yours.

Please take me up on my offer to help you out if you ever need a knitter or stitcher. You can find me on Ravelry at "saralouise" or e-mail me.

Have a great spring!

Sam I Am...... said...

Kristin, I received Rebecca's book and I thank you so much. I remember Susan Anderson talking about taking her workshop on her blog and how much she enjoyed it and here I have it in book form and it even comes with a sampler to work!
I adore you sunflower and it's really been years since I embroidered or did crewel work but now that I am retired there are not enough hours in the day! LOL! I love it all and I'm thinking of signing up for your class too. I wish I would have retired years ago! Ha! Ha!
Thank you for your blog too.

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