Читать книгу Stitching Idyllic: Hand Stitch Recognizable Summer Flowers - Ann Bernard - Страница 4

Spring Flowers proved to be a stitchable project. Summer flowers presented all sorts of problems for hand embroidery. Summer is a time of profusion in the garden, farm, fields, and forest. This profusion gives us the bountiful harvests on which human life depends. Bless it forever. Look around your garden or at some photographs. You will notice that almost every plant has dozens of stems or stalks, often many dozens of flowers and hundreds of leaves. Summer plants are dense, colourful and profuse. Browsing the books in my library, I noticed that stitchers usually choose to depict a spray from a plant, such as can be cut and brought into the house and placed in a vase. Or, the flower is stitched as a botanical specimen. The flower is depicted in accurate and beautiful stitching. Satin stitch, Thread Painting and Long and Short stitch are the most commonly used for this though other techniques such as Ribbon Embroidery and Stump work are also used. These 'flower selective' results are gorgeous but they do not indicate the profusion that exists out in the garden. Other creative stitchers have created swathes and layers of coloured fabric for a vista. These are gorgeous, the colour is usually wonderful but the identity of the flowers is questionable or indicated in the text. Yes, I love these vistas of gold and purple, umber and green but they are not what I have been trying to capture with my needle and thread. My stitching mind has been seeking to find out how to produce recognizable plants and flowers in the profusion of a garden.

Before moving on to solutions, let me tell you that after 16 attempts with different stitches just to find a generic way to indicate stalks and leaves has led to frustration, procrastination and minimal success.

The border plants such as Alyssum, Impatience, even Portulaca, were not too difficult but these are all foot level plants whereas a summer garden has mid-sized plants such as Shasta Daisies and a lot of really tall ones like Hollyhocks. The form of each one is so different that on finally deciding on a generic stitch for all the greenery, I found that it was only appropriate for a minimum of plants. Look at the leaf forms of Hollyhocks and of Lupins. They have little in common and each one needs individual consideration. Unless the botanical form of a plant is accurately portrayed and the form and colour of the flowers and leaves is also accurate, the eye will not identify the plant. They become, 'loverly pink flowers but I am not really sure what they are!' Another problem arose in that flowers such as Oriental Poppies have very large petals. Yes, these are an ideal subject for Long and Short stitch but in profusion in a garden, how does one portray them in an identifiable manner without undertaking Long and Short stitch using a microscope.

Necessity and frustration led the way and the result is Silk Flower Conversion. This technique is appropriate for flowers with large flat petals such as Clematis and Hibiscus. You will find this technique in the latter part of this book.

The first part of the text will give you the information you need to stitch many summer flowers using hand embroidery techniques. A moderate number of different stitches are used and the directions are included plus how to modify them to achieve special effects.

Included in this text are the directions for several ways to create a background for the flowers. There are books already published on other ways to create scenes from nature and I refer you to them. Add that information together with how to stitch individual flowers and then be creative in your own way. Instead, I have focused more on how to achieve backgrounds easily and fairly quickly. The background is the backdrop for the flowers rather than being the purpose of the composition. The reason for publishing this now is that I am no longer on the young edge of old age and I think it wiser to complete and publish what I have already created rather than wait for further inspiration to strike. Or not strike, which is a strong possibility.

The most basic and simplest of stitches and techniques are used so that everyone, no matter their skills or experience, can achieve their goals. More experienced stitchers can use this information to create and develop results far beyond what is covered in this book. The materials used are basic and readily available. That is: quilting cotton (medium thread count white cotton) and DMC Floss threads. If you have embroidery fabrics such as linen available then use them and enjoy stitching on fabric that is more suited to embroidery. I used Cashel and Belfast linen but it would be preferable to use a linen with a higher thread count. Do not be tempted to use cotton sheeting as the thread count is too high making it difficult to pierce with a needle.

The plants and flowers have to be recognizable in that the growth pattern, the shapes of the leaves and flowers have to be congruent with nature. Although it is impossible to stitch a total likeness to a 'real flower' using needle and thread, your rendition should be faithful to the intentions of mother nature and be recognizable.

The colours of the stalks, leaves and flowers must be accurate. Without this accuracy, the eye will not recognize the plants and identify them.

We are all very different people and stitch - be creative - in many different ways. Copying is alright but following your own creative urge is better. This book is a structure on which to grow your own garden. The more different it is from this, the better. Be as creative as you wish. This may sound like a contradiction to the thread colour recipes and the gardens featured in this book. Take this foundation and express it in your own way.

But first it is necessary to prepare background fabric properly. Without this you are wasting your time and talents especially if you are creating an item that might be destined for posterity. Even if you do not envisage your creation being hung in a museum 300 years hence, preparing your fabric properly will save you much stitching frustration and give you a far better completed product. You will be glad that you took the time to do this well.

This form of embroidery is called Creative Surface Stitchery.

Wishing you Happy Stitching and a result to be proud of.

Ann Bernard