3rd Place, Professional Original

This piece was stitched totally on a whim. I have done a bit of calligraphy in my life, so have a fondness for letters and “fonts.” I also am well known for stitching flowers—lots of flowers. So why not a few more? I had been impressed by a few designs by other designers that involved garlands of flowers, so I decided to combine the two concepts and stitch a monogram made of flowers. What better than my first initial?

I also love different stitches, both those of embroidery and those developed for canvaswork. This design is executed in many different stitches, and for the most part I did not repeat them. I thought about which stitches I could use that would resemble flowers on their own. Of course, I had done this many times in the past when creating some of my other designs, so it was kind of a natural. Some stitches just resemble flowers by their very nature: stitches like Ribbed Spiders, and Whipped Spiders, too. Rhodes Hearts make perfect bleeding hearts flowers when arranged on a stem. Embroidery stitches like Bullion Knots and Lazy Daisies are commonly used to make flowers in both embroidery and canvaswork. And by arranging certain stitches and/or techniques—like needleweaving and French Knots—it’s easy to create a flower. Or something that resembles one.

I also utilized a small amount of silk ribbon for some of the flowers in this piece. And I knew I had in my “stash” some small narcissi made out of ribbon—I did not make them myself; I bought them years ago—and finally, here was the perfect place to use them.

For the background I chose pattern darning in kind of a wavy pattern, but here and there I allowed still another flower or two to sneak in, because they are readily done in darning. They are subtle and unobtrusive, but they are there.

I did this piece for fun, not for teaching, not to make any kind of political statement. Just for fun.