FREE HAND

Free embroidery work encompasses everything that doesn't fall within any of the other categories and uses various embroidery stitches to form a design.

The first thumbnail on the right is an emroidery piece I designed myself. It depicts a pyracantha firethorn that grows at the front of my house. I stitched it mostly in french knots.

The second thumbnail was my first attempt at this kind of stitch. It also appears in the canvas work section as the frame is worked in this medium and was made as a sampler. The poppy in the centre is worked in long and short stitch using silk thread on silk fabric.

The following landscape picture is an experimental piece. The sky and distant hill effect is achieved by placing chopped fragments of rayon, from old head-scarves. The corn field is stitched in ordinary long stitch and the trunk of the tree is close stem stitch using different shades of brown threads. The tree leaves and middl distant field are worked in fly stitch.

We spent a lot of holidays in Germany and I found a picture of the Black Forest in a magazine. I liked the way the sun shone through the trees and I tried to capture it in this embroidery. I started off with an ordinary piece of white sheeting and drew, with a disappearing pen, the tree trunks. Using stem stitch, I embroidered the most distant trees first. Then I covered it in blue/grey netting to achieve the distant effect. I embroidered layer upon layer in similar fashion. Then I used yellow netting for the sun beam effect. Stitchery (various stitches) was used for the leaves and twigs.

The fifth picture of the tree and bird bath was stitched at an Embroiderers Guild study weekend. The idea was taken from a picture my garden in winter. It was meant to be one of four seasons. Various threads and stitches are used to give the effect of snow.

April 2010: I am stitching a quilt for one of my grandaughters. The quilt is made up of twelve blocks. Ten of these feature animals, one is of a acarecrow and the last one is of a barn. The picture on the left is of all twelve blocks. The picture on the rights is of the blocks but also includes the cream material that I intend to back the quilt with. The coloured flowery material is what I shall use as bars between the blocks and round of the edge of the finished quilt.

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