Stitching Idyllic: Spring Flowers (SECOND EDITION)

By Ann Bernard

Make a Beautiful Embroidered Garden Come to Life

Imagine an idyllic garden filled with your favourite spring flowers - now you can make it come to life with this step-by-step guide to embroidering a beautiful garden scene!

Find concise instruction on how to stitch 23 different spring flowers and trees. You'll learn how using unique adaptations of only four basic stitches - Straight, Detached Chain, Buttonhole and French Knots.

Both novice and experienced stitchers will certainly improve their embroidery skills while creating an original garden scene that is unique and made by you.

Ann Bernard trained at the Royal School of Needlework and has a lifetime of stitching experience and tips to share. Her approach makes stitching fun and easy-to-learn with detailed directions, diagrams and photos leading you every step of the way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Jun 12, 2017
• ISBN: 9781456626754

Book preview

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REVIEWS

Once in a lifetime, a keen student obtains an authoritative text which becomes a firm foundation for everything that follows. In the world of botanical embroidery – this is that text. It is not the fanciful embroidery of the Jacobeans, nor the drooping coils of Art Nouveau. This is the rendering of botanically correct images using embroidery thread with due attention to hue and colour. It uses the techniques artists use to create the infinite complexity of natural patterns. Follow the detailed instructions and the numerous illustrations and you will be exploring all the different yellows to contrast the daffodil with the crocus. Perhaps you will be making your first detailed observations of the arrangement of leaves on a plant stem. Others will then recognize the plants in the embroidery garden you have created.

With profuse illustrations of stitched gardens, real flowers, embroidered flowers as well as line drawings and how-to diagrams, Ann brings you a lifetime of dedication to embroidery and botany. Anyone who is new to embroidery (as I was) will be successful if they follow her detailed instructions on preparation, colour choice and methods for stitching flowers. Your garden will bloom!

Bridget O'Brien, Guelph ON

This book had me itching to start stitching. The level of detail is wonderful for new stitchers and great for experienced stitchers to help maintain good stitching habits.  She tells us how to do a certain operation and what not to do from her experience. I thought that was great for those of us who do not follow directions very well. Looking forward to your next book.

Marsha Fontes,  Cambridge ON

Ann Bernard has written a wonderful instruction book on how to stitch miniature garden flowers. Ann's instructions are so clear and precise I would have no difficulty in achieving excellent results.

It is plain this work is dear to her heart. The numerous illustrations of her exquisite flowers demonstrate her dedication to achieving extremely lifelike results. They almost look like garden photos that have been altered with special effects, not pictures painted with thread! The book is also very readable and it’s like having the charming, affable Ann in the room; I could almost hear her voice as I read it! Every embroiderer who loves flowers should have a copy of this book in their personal library!

Lilith Muramasa, Guelph ON

This 2nd edition of Hand Stitch Recognizable Spring Flowers is a good book to learn how to create and embroider spring flowers in an easy, free style manner. Included are wonderful, full coloured photographs and examples. Only four basic stitches are used. The beginner stitcher will feel a sense of confidence as she works through the very clear step-by-step instructions. This book is a good investment for the beginner but also for intermediate and other stitchers who may appreciate help in creating designs. The informal conversational style of the contents is engaging. It is, as if you are taking a class, one on one, with Ann in your own living room.

Ann Bernard is to be congratulated for the time and effort put into producing this extremely helpful book. Her teaching and stitching experience come through the words.

Alison Jackson, Cambridge

ANN BERNARD'S STITCHING BIOGRAPHY

Ann learned to stitch at her grandmother's knee, progressing to win, at the age of 10, an adult first prize at the Cartmel Fair in the north of England. From that point she was hooked permanently. Ann graduated from the Royal School of Needlework in the 1950s and went on to become an Occupational Therapist before emigrating to Canada. In later years, she specialized in CranioSacral Therapy, treating those in need of specialized rehabilitation. Ann has been a member of the Toronto Guild of Stitchery and the Embroiderers’Association of Canada, and has worked on the Toronto Historical Embroidery. Since moving to Guelph, she has joined the Canadian Embroiders’ Guild, Guelph. Ann is married, has three children and a grandson.

She has taught classes in Traditional and Contemporary Crewel Work, Contemporary Gold Work, and Creative Surface Stitchery. Her work has been exhibited in Canada and the U.S.A. and she has been a recipient of the Embroiderers' Association of Canada's Leonida Leatherdale Award. Her greatest thrill is when her students try new techniques and create original embroideries. Then, when they win awards for their efforts, that is truly wonderful.

Although Ann is a well educated and experienced stitcher, she is a novice with computers and a camera. She has learned a lot writing these books and hopes that Spring Flowers 2nd Edition will be more readable and attractive for you. Several new flowers have been added to the text, together with more stitched gardens. Also included are ideas for projects other than pictures. The information has all been reviewed with the goal of improving the clarity for the consumer. The original four basic stitches and their adaptations have been used throughout the book including the front cover embroidery.

eBook format has been chosen to make the cost of this book affordable. Please respect copyright and purchase a new copy for a friend rather than copying or lending yours.

Ann thanks you for joining her on this stitching exploration. All good wishes on your journey!

INTRODUCTION

Here is another book on stitching flowers. After hundreds of years in which stitchers have followed their own creative urges and used all the information available, what else could there possibly be that that has not already been created? Some new ways to interpret flowers in stitches are here for you to enjoy and to make your own. As I browse the latest books of textile creativity, I admire the vision and ingenuity, but I like to have a needle and thread in my hand and to stitch on fabric.

This started many years ago when I had the traditional English song, In an English Country Garden, on my mind. I found some green/turquoise linen-type fabric, delved into my stash of threads, got out my antique 36" standing frame and started stitching. This garden grew with abandon and, as I mulled over how to interpret the various flowers, new ways of stitching them emerged. The size of it meant that it was a lot of work, but it was worth every hour of both stitching and reverse stitching. As a completed piece, it has won prizes and been exhibited in Canada and the U.S.A. It fascinates viewers when displayed with the lyrics of the song; they search for and find all the elements of the song. An extra that is not in the song is the Fenwick Frog. Can you find it?

Which brings us to now. Retirement has given me time to develop the concepts started with the English Country Garden into a wider and more organized body of knowledge. My students have proved to themselves and to me that these concepts work, are not difficult, are within the ability of a novice, and make a fun project for more experienced stitchers. The aim of the text is to give adequate instruction so that all are able to follow the directions and create a garden that is uniquely their own. It is amazing how different the resulting gardens can be.

We started with spring flowers. The stitches used are developments of familiar stitches such as Straight stitch, Detached Chain stitch, French Knots and Buttonhole. The instructions for these stitches are in Basic stitches with the adaptations created for the plants and flowers included in this book.

Please, please, please read all the directions in the first section. Preparation is Important before you begin stitching. It is important to know how to attach fabric tightly to a rectangular frame. A ring or hoop frame is a viable alternative though maintaining the fabric tension is less certain. Grip-n-Stitch frames are new on the market and are superior in performance to hoop frames and easy to mount and manage.

It is also important to Strand and to Strand and Mix your threads. Annoying and time consuming though this is, it is time well spent and you will find that you will become faster and less annoyed with practice.

Raid your stash of threads and use what you have for your sampler. Again, I emphasize that this stage of discovery and learning is very important. My students tended to flounder if they did not do this before stitching a specific flower into their final garden.

When you stitch your real garden, please do invest in the thread colours stated in the directions. It is not possible to stitch a plant that is readily identifiable unless the flower, its leaves and its stalk are the correct colour. The test of how well you have portrayed a specific plant is when someone looks at it and says, without prompting from you, look at those tulips or that hyacinth looks just right next to the iris. Correct colour is vital for this to happen. You may have to adapt the shades of a colour so that it is visible and does not blend into the background fabric especially if it is a darker green.

We developed the directions for stitching the flowers by using a developmental chart. If you wish to create flowers that are special for you or are indigenous to your area, I will be happy to email you a blank copy. We used DMC threads. Conversion charts for Clark's Anchor Thread and Finca Threads are available online and there is one at the end of the book. These threads are available almost everywhere, are easy to use and provide the correct colours. If you do not have the colour in one brand but do have it in another, substitute. The colour has to be correct with nature or else you will be disappointed with the results.

English Country Garden is now old and although the threads have retained their colour, the fabric is looking its age. This is despite hanging it out of direct light and finally putting it behind glass for protection. As a result, photographing it has produced less than ideal results.

The gardens stitched by students have been predictably varied. All of your gardens will be different. The more different they are, the more creative you have been.

At this point, I would like to thank my wonderfully trusting and willing group of stitchers who helped in obvious but also intangible ways to help this whole process happen. For the first group it was like having to build a boat when you have never seen one. Later stitchers had a starting point.

It only remains for me to wish you Happy Stitching and to say that I look forward to seeing a photo of your garden.

I am including my email address to receive photos and to answer questions. Please put stitching, or embroidery in the subject line. Due to a high volume of junk mail, I could otherwise miss them.

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To Repeat:

These techniques are easy. The text has been written with the beginner stitcher in mind. Notes are included on how to thread a needle and how to place a knot at the end of the thread. Skip this section if it is not appropriate for you.

Asides: These present general information on stitching that are not often included in stitching texts. All information is culled from my training at The Royal School of