Welcome to the ‘Bees and Blossoms’ Stitch A Long
This Stitch A Long will take place for 10 weeks on the Stitchdoodles blog – Starting Wednesday 18th May 2022 and finishing on Wednesday 20th July 2022.
Each Wednesday during the SAL – a new tutorial will be published on the blog with all the information you need to complete a part of the Bees and Blossom Pattern.
If you are not familiar with a Stitchdoodles SAL and this is all new to you and you would like to join in, please go to this page to get all the information.
The Mini Stitch a Long
If you have decided to join us for the first 3 weeks to stitch the mini pattern, then this is the last tutorial you will need as once this is stitched you have completed your Pattern.
Do you need help with any of the stitches?
A Stitch A Long doesn’t provide you with the step by step instructions for the stitches themselves – it is a tutorial on how to stitch the pattern design – colours, techniques and stitches used etc. I will link to a ‘How to’ for certain stitches where I can, if you need further guidance, please take a look here …
How to Teach Yourself Hand Embroidery Stitches
This week we are stitching….
The Sunflower
You will need the following colours…
#725, #433, #3827, #471, #472, #29
Use 2 strands throughout unless stated otherwise.
Let’s start by stitching the leaves…
#471: Fishbone stitch all of the leaves including the cluster of 5 at the bottom of the curve.
Start at the top of your leaf and stitch downwards to the base (If it helps you can draw a centre line down the leaf first to help you keep in line).
If you need any extra help, take a look at the tutorial here… How to Stitch Fishbone Stitch
Once all the leaves are stitched use the same colour (#471) to stitch the circular stem all the way around from the first flower to the head of the sunflower. This is stitched in Stem Stitch to give a lovely natural curl.
Now all thats left to do for the leaves is finish off the remaining smaller branches that are winding around the main stem…
#472: Stem stitch the winding branches.
#29: Chain Stitch the buds and fill each with a straight stitch.
Stitching the Sunflower…
#3827: Split stitch around the petal edges. Keep your stitches small to maintain the shape and cover all the lines.
#725: Fill each of the petals in by split stitching. It is easier to fill in by doing your first line of stitches up the centre of a petal and then fill in either side with remaining split stitch lines next to each other.
Make sure you keep inside the outer edges (don’t stitch over them) as you want to be able to see the petals shape. You may find you just need to stitch slightly under the edge stitch so there are no visible gaps.
All that needs to be done now is the centre. I decided on Trellis Stitch as I like the effect mixing in a variety of stitches gives to a finished piece. If you prefer it to be more filled in then you could opt for French Knots instead.
Stitch with #433…
Trellis stitch is just a simple grid, anchored down on the cross sections. As you can see in the following photos, start by stitching vertical long stitches evenly spaced apart and then do the same horizontally – start with the centre line and then do above and below evenly spaced.
Once complete you have a nice simple grid. All you need to do now is anchor the grid down on the cross sections with tiny diagonal stitches. Bring the needle up at a cross section (first photo) and then take it across and down to anchor the long stitches in place (second photo).
Anchor down the rest of the cross sections in the same way and then finish by back stitching around the circle edge.
Week 3 is complete…
If you have been stitching the Mini version then week 3 is the final week – you are all done. I am sure you are incredibly happy with how it looks and hope you really enjoyed the process.
Share your 3 week accomplishments in the Happy Stitching FB Group or on Instagram with #stitchdoodlesembroidery.
For those of you on the 10 week journey – see you next week!
Week 4 is on the blog Wednesday 8th June.
Happy Stitching!
