I was hoping to have finished this area of the garden by now but I found there is a disadvantage in having a hedge (ish) of wild roses across the back of the garden, it takes forever to embroider!! I even took it to my Skipton Stitchers meeting which gives me a few hours stitching and still didn’t make much inroad!! Three weeks ago I had just started the roses!!
These roses are the simple open petalled type so I didn’t just want to stitch them with a chunky French knot, I tried a few straight stitches round a small french knot but that looked messy and came out too big, so I resorted to a little French knot surrounded by some loose-ish stem stitches. I think my mistake was doing most of my French knots first and I did rather a lot of them!!!
I’ve started filling in a few perennials under the roses, some alchemilla mollis and I’m just doing a pink geranium. The rest will hopefully not take too long, theres the rhodedendron bush which is the green circle, theres a camelia in the corner behind it and then some hellebores in front together with a little azalea…and maybe a few lines on the blank area on the left where the flagged path and steps are…then I think I’ll be finished!
I’ve one more big one like this of the other side which has the amber & amethyst garden and maybe a couple more little ones – ones almost finished. I want to do a map of the garden too which I’m doing as my (very belated) final piece from the Cartography embroidery course I did with Zara Day but that won’t be anywhere near as intensive as these ones.
Now the end is in sight, I’ve started to think about how I’m going to put it together. There’s a lot of raised surface embroidery with the chunky French knots, so at the moment I’m wondering about backing them with pelmet vilene to give the support and then edging with a fine cotton bias binding, a bit like how a quilt is edged. I’ve got a bias binding maker so if I can master the technique I can make my own bias from pretty quilting cottons.
This SAL is organised by Avis from Stitching by the Sea, we post our progress every three weeks, it certainly gives me the motivation to keeo going on some of these bigger projects. Please follow the links to see what everyone else has been stitching
Avis, Claire, Gun, Christina, Kathy, Margaret,
Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, Daisy,
AJ, Cathie, Linda, Helen, Connie, Cindy, MaryMargaret
thecraftycreek 
I love seeing this garden grow!
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Thanks Claire, it’s coming together.
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Your stitchery is so beautiful. The roses are fantastic. I like your assembly ideas. Especially with the binding.
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Thanks Cathy, hopefully it will work as I envisage.
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Embroidery is not something I’m good at. Yours is fantastic and you get a feel of your garden. Binding it like a quilt sounds excellent. Can’t wait to see it all finished and assembled.
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I always thought I was no good at embroidery, I think I spent so long doing cross stitch I convinced myself I couldn’t make the stitches neat enough! I started with the simple stuff and loved it.
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The rose hedge is worth the effort!
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Thank Kathy, I’m pleased with it
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I’d never get anything done at a crafting group. I’d be far too busy looking at what everyone else was stitching LOL. Love the hedge!
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I know what you mean, some of our members seem to spend all day meandering round and socialising, which is lovely if that’s what they want.
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Beautiful – and I love your tours around the garden too!
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Thank you, I always see something new when I go round
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So many but very much worth it.
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Thank you, I think so too
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Love your garden and the roses look wonderful
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