Back to Camellias

As soon as I finished Floral Melody, I felt the first pangs of post project blues coming on. I had anticipated this and put Camellias onto the stand to get on with before PPB could take hold. Camellias is one of the projects am aiming to finish but there is more work outstanding than for most of the other projects on the list. Last time I worked on Camellias was in October when I completed the two-tone flower on the right.

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

Flush with success following Trish Burr’s Chinese Flower on-line class, I approached Camellias with unprecedented confidence ... which dissolved the moment I contemplated tackling LSS on partially stitched white flower on the left.

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

I am not going to dwell on why I freeze every time I come to do LSS in Japanese embroidery. It is something that I have to overcome. Rather than sit starring desolately at my piece, I decided to start working on some of the leaves.

There are 18 leaves on Camellias, 15 of which are worked in flat silk. There are many things to concentrate on when stitching a flat silk foundation; keeping the stitches evenly spaced and parallel to each other, creating a nicely shaped edge, maintaining a one point open space between motifs and keeping the silk flat and smooth. It had been a couple of months since I had even touched silk and I felt very rusty. At first I focussed hard on keeping the stitches parallel and making the silk as smooth and shiny as I could but the edges of the leaves were not as smooth as they could be.

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

Then I paid closer attention to the outline but my one point open space was more like a gaping chasm.

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

Gradually everything that I have learnt came back to me and my anxiety, as well as my stitching, settled down

© JEC/Carol-Anne Conway

Happy Stitching

Colour Challenge Chinese Whisper

My next finish was something that I had not even started but it was long overdue. The colour Chinese whispers travelling page was a swap/challenge on the Embroiderer’s Guild Forum. The idea was that we all started with the same basic design, which we could modify but the original design had to remain evident. The first person stitched the design in a single colour. The second person stitched the design using two colours, that used by the first person and one of their own choice. Each subsequent person stitched their own take on the design adding their choice of colour to those stitched by the previous person. I was the seventh person in the chain and the colours passed on to me were royal blue, orange, bright green, turquoise, red and violet. I selected a range of threads from my stash that offered the closest match to these colours and added gold as my choice.


For me, this was by far the hardest challenge I have taken part in so far. I really struggled to come up with a design. I did not want to simply use the original design as a frame around a separate design but I could not see any other way of using it. Although there was no specific deadline given, I knew that everyone else had completed their pages weeks ago and in the end I felt under pressure to complete mine. I turned to a favourite book to look for inspiration, Just Flowers by Lesley Turpin-Delport, and found it in the ribbon embroidery alphabet. In the book, each letter is matched with a flower whose name begins with that letter. I stuck to that principle but changed some of the flowers to ones that better suited the colours in my list.


I enjoyed the challenge and the embroidery, and I think that it is quite pretty but ultimately I was disappointed at my lack of imagination on this challenge.

Happy Stitching

Chinese Flower, finished

Next on my list of things to finish was Chinese Flower.

When I began this piece in September, I never imagined it would still be on the frame in January. I have taken a lot of time and care over the stitching but even so I am amazed at how much stitching time this small piece took (unfortunately, I did not record my hours but as a rough guide one each leaf took 3-4 hours to stitch).

© Trish Burr/Carol-Anne Conway

I cannot sing the praises of this on-line course enough. I think the design is really pretty. The transfer on the fabric was excellent; the grey lines are dark enough to be seen clearly but cover nicely with the thread. The instructions are very good, with clear indications for colour placement, stitch direction and order of stitching. I also purchased Trish’s DVD, The Long and the Short of It, and found this indispensable. I initially watched it all the way through but then review the relevant sections for each lesson. Optional assessment was offered as part of the course for a limited time period (beyond the end of the course). I only completed Lesson one during that time frame. Trish’s response was timely, gracious and very helpful. Even though it was well past the finish date, I did send a picture of my finished design purely for her to see and Trish responded with some very lovely comments about my stitching.

© Trish Burr/Carol-Anne Conway

As for stitching the design, well I loved it! The printed design looks a little cartoonish and I could not image how I would transform that into anything closely resembling Trish’s stitched sample. I tried to everything I had ever heard or read about long and short stitch and follow Trish’s instructions as closely as possible. From the very first element, the rose bud, I was staggered to see what was emerging from my needle and as the project progressed I felt more and more confident about my stitching.

© Trish Burr/Carol-Anne Conway

I could not wait to start the kingfisher. I was aiming to make the colour transitions and appearance of the leaves and petals as smooth as possible so, at first, I found it difficult to achieve the more irregular look of the bird’s feathers. I eventually got the hang of it and, once I had, I really enjoyed the freeness of stitching with abandon!

© Trish Burr/Carol-Anne Conway

I am such a silkaholic that I did not think I would ever be satisfied with a piece stitched in cotton floss but I am quite impressed with how it came out. I’d be interested to see the same piece stitched in silk for comparison but I won’t be undertaking that any time soon.

If you have been thinking about taking this course (if/when Trish reruns it), I whole heartedly recommend it and I am delighted with my version of the Chinese Flower.

Happy Stitching