Embroidered Dandelions

My love for embroidery still continues and for the past few weeks I've been working on a series of embroidered hoops based on a dandelion design.

The first one was inspired by a wooden block I have which features a dandelion clock.  The ends look just like fly stitches so I felt it cried out to be an embroidery.  I decided to do this on a navy blue background so I could use cream thread so the seed head looked more realistic.

I then moved on to design number two which incorporated fabric in a side panel and one of the dandelion heads.  I chose yellow to reflect the yellow of the dandelion flower.

For this seed head I used French knots at the end of a long stitch.  I did try it with pistol stitch but I wasn't pleased with the result and felt the French knots looked better.

For the final design I printed some of my dyed fabric with the wooden block that had inspired me.  I used discharge paste so the design is quite subtle.  Circles of the fabric were bonded to the background (I used misty fuse to keep it soft) and then secured with buttonhole around the edge.  I used French knots again for the 'seeds' around the circle and used a few long stitches to give the impression of the stalks.   The stems were whipped backstitch.

I've loved doing all three of these designs and have a head full of more!

What I did with snow dyed fabric!

You may recall that earlier this year we were blessed with snow, the first time for some years and as a committed dyer, I did some snow dyeing.

At long last I've used the fabric I produced to make some mats and a tablecloth for our caravan.  The designs were simple so I could get them done quickly and out of the fabric from this year's dyeing I made mats for the table and coffee table.

These two used all the fabric I had so delving in to my stash I found some more fabric that I did some years ago using either snow or ice - I can't remember which!

The colours are much deeper than this year's batch so I don't know what I did that was different. 

For the tablecloth, I used a wooden block to print a leaf design using discharge paste.  I had intended to do this with the first two mats but I forgot to do it!

It was a great exercise as it showed me how different coloured dyes react - some of the squares only had a very feint print whereas others were very clear.   I haven't done much work with discharge paste but I was so pleased with this work that I'll definitely do more again soon.