During our Easter holiday in the Lake District we visited Blackwell, an amazing Arts and Crafts house near Windermere and among the inspirations photos I took were a couple of the lovely whitework embroidery on one of the pillows.
Perfect to work as a sample for my journal. I’ve used the corner of an old chair back, which is a nice heavy cotton and a couple of different thicknesses of white perle thread.
It’s meant to be similar, not identical. The grass-type spray is bullion knots with long tails on a stem stitch stalk. The flowers are padded satin stitch, in this case satin stitch over a chain stitch outline. The centres are just five straight stitches with a french knot in the middle.
Then I moved onto a flower created from a cluster of French knots. I’ve used the thicker perle in the centre and then started round the edges with the thinner perle to give a domed shape.
First time I’ve tried traditional white work and it’s coming along nicely.
Under A Topaz Sky 
Goodness, you managed to create something much more manageable than I did from your Lake District inspiration. I ended up stencilling the dining room and pargetting the bathroom!
Oh there’s stencilling to come, but on fabric – more manageable!!
It looks lovely Alex…….but I don’t want to do it!!
x C
I adore white…then again you probably knew that!! This is gorgeous Alex….
This is gorgeous and so refreshing for this hot time of year!