Beautiful Foxgloves

I've recently finished this foxglove piece, I admit it's taken me longer than it really should have. I was trying to work out how to get the right perspective. Ensuring that the foxglove flowers and leaves were the correct size, took more working out than I'd realised.

After dyeing the fabric background using sponges to create more of a depth rather than a flat colour I then went on to create a template for the flowers. I imagined the flower trumpets as if they were opened out and flattened and created a cardboard template.

I created four different sizes of template, some of which would be used for the base of the flower trumpets. I think I made in the region of 50 flowers of varying sizes. I created templates foe the leaves too, the leaves were created using velvet which I then free motion embroidered the details on each leaf.

I free motion embroidered the grass on the background, then felted green merino wool fibres to give the base some depth, I finished it off by hand embroidering some flower details.

I hand sewed the flower trumpets on by hand from the bottom up as I needed the trumpets to lay on top of each other.

I hope you enjoyed a little insight into this piece, let me know what you are all doing, I'd love to see your projects. You are welcome to email me Tony@themanbroiderer.co.uk

Popping Poppies

I’ve always loved poppies, mainly the kind that grow naturally in fields. Today there are many different types which as beautiful as they are, they don’t hold the same meaning to me.

obviously the poppies found wild in fields symbolise both world wars, which I admit I am obsessed with. It just grows anywhere and makes a boring meadow or fallow field into something truly beautiful, those small pops of red are just striking.

this new piece I have created is a stylised poppy field image that I hope emulates what I mean. Using a series of stem stitch and straight stitch to create a hay field, dotted with French knot coloured “flowers”. I’ve created poppies using cotton fabric, stiffened with Aleenes fabric stiffener, stitched in the centre with dozens of black French knots. I really hope you all like it.