I was very taken by the allium treatment in Janet Haigh’s book ‘The Embroiderer’s Floral’ and decided as my second piece to stitch a version of her design. I wanted to change scale from the first piece but as I’m using silk fabric samples I was limited by the size of the pieces, hence the decision to do half a flower head.
Instead of a gauze circle behind the stitching I used shocking pink silk dupion on a silk noil background with some pink fabric behind just to stabilise it.
Heavy space-dyed cotton perle in oranges and pinks for the large star stitches, finer cotton perle in greens shading to pinks for the smaller crossing stars and Stef Francis space dyed stranded silk in yellows for the central french knots. Stitching the french knots through three layers of fabric and all those criss-crossed perle threads was…interesting!
this is so lovely!! I have a secret passion for pink despite all the white I use and I love the surface you have created here…
I love these alliums – the colour and stitch is beautiful. Thanks for visiting my blog and leaving a comment. The hair on our button babes was needle felted onto the back of the “babes” head after they were cut out and embroidered and before a piece of backing felt was stitched into place. (arms and legs were added at this stage too)
Thanks so much to you both for leaving me such lovely comments! Thanks also, Gina, for letting me know how the button babes are put together – I might be trying them out myself!
This is just delicious, will it be added to the net like fabric?
Yes. The idea is for there to be six embroidered allium pieces and a scattering of chiffon and organza circles to link them tacked onto the soluble fabric and then machined into. Thank you very much for visiting and commenting!
I can imagine that stitching the final layer of stitches over the fabric and the previous stitches might have been a little strenuous! Have you got a needle-grabber?
So funny, I too have been mesmerized by Janet Haigh’s alliums, and have worked my own versions of her big pom-pom flower heads. I say it again, so glad that i followed the comment you left on my blog back here…enjoying reading all your posts…