Tudor Rose - Part 2

The second lesson of Tudor Rose concentrated on the flower. Each of the two flowers, the outer red one and the inner white one were outlined with backstitch using Soie Perlee. I’ve hadn’t used Perlee threads much before this project and had only worked with cotton Perlee before. It is not a thread that I liked very much but that is probably because it is not suited to the type of embroidery I usually do. However, I really enjoyed working with it on this project. That may be because the thread used is 100% silk and I am a total silk addict but I also liked the weight and the degree of twist in the Soie Perlee.

© Thistle Threads/Carol-Anne Conway

The petals are filled with alternating up and down buttonhole stitch with return. I had done this stitch on the gold work sampler but using a metallic thread. I practised the stitch using the Soie Perlee on my doodle cloth before attempting it on the Tudor Rose.

© Thistle Threads/Carol-Anne Conway

The first few rows of each petal the detached buttonhole stitch is worked in metallic thread on a silk return. The remainder of the petal is work entirely in silk.

© Thistle Threads/Carol-Anne Conway

The inner flower is worked in exactly the same way, combining white and silver instead of red and gold.

© Thistle Threads/Carol-Anne Conway

In the picture of the stitched sample supplied with the course notes the stitches are much more compact than mine. I think this may be because the back stitch outline was done with smaller stitches. I think the open lacy effect of fewer stitches, as on mine, has a certain charm, but on balance I think I prefer the smaller, denser version.

© Thistle Threads/Carol-Anne Conway

The centre of the flower was also covered in lesson two but it is quite textured and uses delicate gold perlees so I decided to leave that part until after I had completed the leaves in lesson three.

© Thistle Threads/Carol-Anne Conway

Happy Stitching