Embroidered Bouquet Tutorial

I freeform stitched this embroidery a few weeks ago as a feature panel for one of my book projects. Unfortunately the style of the embroidery didn't work with my chosen fabrics for the project. So I decided to share the pattern in case you would like to stitch it too!

Unfortunately I didn't take any photos during the making of the embroidery so what follows is a mini-tutorial, if you like.

MATERIALS:

- 8" square background fabric
- 4" embroidery hoop - the cute pink one I used is Cosmo brand
- Embroidery floss in miscellanous colours
- Pattern - download it from this link

TUTORIAL:

1. Download the pattern and print at 100% scale (make sure you aren't scaling up to fit the page or your embroidery will be the wrong size!)

2. Trace the pattern onto the fabric. Check out my tutorial on 'Tracing an embroidery pattern' if you would like to use my method. Stretch onto the hoop, making sure the pattern is centred.

3. Using two strands of embroidery floss throughout, stitch as follows:

- Large pink flower: french knot centre, satin stitch petals, with a few extra stitches in deeper red through the petals to add depth

- Blue flowers: satin stitch

- Blue buds: french knots

- Apricot flowers - satin stitch, with a lighter colour for the flower centre

- Yellow buds - satin stitch

- Red buds - french knots

- Pink drooping flowers - long & short stitch

- Stems throughout - back stitch

- Leaves - fishbone stitch

If you aren't familiar with any of the stitches above or would like a refresher, you can find some excellent video tutorials on Mary Corbet's Needle'N Thread.

4. Finish the back neatly using my method from this tutorial.

Happy stitching!