The second big page for my garden book is finally come together, it’s a while from being finished but I’ve got into my stride with it now. When I first start a page like this the empty fabric does seem a bit daunting but once I get going it does seem easier. I also start to use more ‘artistic licence’ and not get so het up about which plant or shrub goes where, I’ve got photographs for that!

Three weeks ago I’d started to embroider some of the blobs into shrubs…

I’ve been working on the big bed by the tall fence, it’s mainly shrubs and climbers with a few perennials to fill gaps in. I’ve just looked back at my blog and realised how little my big border features but this is how it looked a couple of autumns ago…

…not an easy area to represent in embroidery!

I seem to have done a fair bit of unpicking this time but I’m happier with the result. After stitching lots of French knots on the purple blob for the cotinus I felt that the blanket stitch edging was just too hard and dominating. I unpicked it and used a lighter shade of variegated thread and feather stitch with fly stitch. I added a trunk and a couple of branches too.

The climbers on the back are wisteria and clematis, the wisteria is definately using artistic license as it was only planted a couple of years ago so this is how I hope it will look soon! On the right is the lilac tree with the pheasantberry underneath, that was another bit that was unpicked as I originally used a heavier thread for the reddish bracts but it just looked too heavy so I unpicked it and used a DMC thread instead.

Other plants so far include a red rose (Darcy Bussel) orange day lily, pink peony, red astrantia. pink rhododendron, box, pieris, philadelphus (just waiting for the white flowers) and daphne.

There’s still a gap that’s a bit too big to leave but I’ve just remembered a clematis in there which nicely meanders through the other shrubs, so that might just meander through the gaps!

As you can see I’ve just started on the bottom corner with a few chunky French knots and a bit of stem stitch for my pink roses….

This right hand bed shouldn’t be as complicated as it’s mainly roses, so just lots of big French knots.

This SAL is organised by Avis, we post our progress on our hand-stitched projects every three weeks, it certainly helps to keep me motivated and moving! Please follow the links to see what everyone else is stitching.

Avis, Claire, Gun, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, Daisy, AJ, Cathie, Linda, Connie, Cindy, MaryMargaret