May Samples

18/18 Pizza

Every week I think, what’s caught my eye? What have I seen recently that’s a bit different? It doesn’t (quite!) always have to be nature…

A trip to the city, a rare meal out – pizza! Pizza Express Vegan Giardiniera to be precise. Artichokes, olives, mushrooms, red onion, vegan “mozzarella”.

So here’s a little piece inspired by (not meant to look too much like!) a pizza. It could possibly be a brooch?

18/19 Primrose lace

OK, so I’ve done several versions of primroses before… but they’re everywhere right now, I just have to play with them again!

For something a bit different, I tried an open, lacy piece – entirely in free machining on soluble fabric.

     

18/20 Whelk shell

This spiral design came from an unusually colourful whelk shell I found on the beach – looking down the whorls from the apex.

I used the Embellisher to make a background, first meshing together loose weave cotton and scrim then adding a rough spiral of white and purple wool fibres.

Then I just had fun with hand embroidery in various purple, yellow and cream threads – running, stem and chain stitches and some French knots.

18/21 Bluebells

I think bluebells are my favourite wildflowers... though I might waver when foxgloves and primroses are about. It’s not the individual plants but the effect of hundreds, thousands of them - that fabulous blue-purple carpet. One of the special treats of a UK spring!

So it was the density of flowers I wanted to capture with this little sample, and I decided the only way to get that was to overlay several layers of embroidery. 

I free machined three strips of stems/leaves and flowers on Aquasol, using Madeira Rayon 40, ranging from 3cm to 4.cm tall. After dissolving and drying I overcast the layers together at the base.

18/22 Cape Daisy

I love to photograph flowers really close up, the centres are often fascinating. This one is a Cape Daisy.

It led to a little sample combining machine and hand embroidery. I pencilled the outline on white cotton fabric, and coloured the centre yellow with fabric crayons. Then I free machined the petals using grey-purple for their outlines and variegated lilac filling.

In the centre I stitched French knots in dark purple perle 8 and golden yellow stranded cotton, with a few purple straight stitches added to fill gaps.