Stitching Flowers and transferring your pattern!

There’s something about this time of year that makes me want to pick up my needle and stitch flowers, flowers and more flowers – and possibly a few leaves, blossoms, bumblebees and ladybirds too!  My garden is now at its best, and I so enjoy sitting out in my gazebo (which I have upgraded for this summer by entwining its roof with sparkling fairy lights), listening to the birds and enjoying the fragrance of honeysuckle, jasmine – and roses too of course.

Last week I began stitching a new hoop for the July edition of the Bustle & Sew Magazine….

Above was right at the beginning – I have collected all my flosses together and hooped up my fabric ready for an afternoon’s stitching.  Rather than bind or serge the edges I have trimmed them with pinking shears as the linen I’m working on is quite loosely woven and slubby with a tendency to fray.  That was last week – and below is earlier today….

I popped outside to photograph my work while I was working the ghiordes (or fluffy!) stitch for the bee’s body.  This is such an easy stitch and very effective too for stitching pompoms, rabbit tails or anything else that’s fluffy.  You may also be able to make out bullion stitch, feather stitch, French knots, satin stitch and back stitch.  In this image the Sulky Sticky Fabri Solvy is still in place – but no longer – it’s currently soaking in cold water to remove every last trace of stabiliser and ink.  Then I will rinse it well and when it’s dry press lightly (I definitely don’t want to flatten my stitches!) and hoop up ready for Rosie to take some photographs.

If you’d like to find out more about the different methods of transferring your pattern – and in particular using Sulky Sticky Fabri Solvy, then please just CLICK HERE to see an earlier post I wrote about this where you can download a free guide to help you do this.