Stumpwork Geranium Instructions

I love doing stumpwork embroidery. Here is a pattern i created and mounted into a lid of a pot. You could also make it up into a card or a small picture.

You will need,
Calico x2 20cm x 20cm
Main Fabric 20cm x 20cm
Starnded cotton either DMC or Anchor i mixed mine up using a bit of both 666 dmc is a good bright red, but geraniums are many shedas of pink too.
2 shades of green stranded cotton
Florist wire 28 guage
embroidery needle and large chenille needle
Here is the basic outline of the design. You will need to print it out and then trace it using a black pen onto tracing paper, then using a light box or sunlit window trace it onto your choice of fabric in pencil, a soft 2B is good. For the fabric i used white satin which i backed onto calico, as with most stumpwork you need to back your fabric as it needs that extra support. This is mounted in a small hoop and screwed in tight, it needs to be drum tight.
Once your design is traced onto it you then stitch the stems in STEM STITCH. I then outlined the leaf in SPLIT STITCH. I used a nice bright fresh green green :) and a darker green for the raised stems, play around with the threads you have on hand. The leaf was then stitched in CHAIN stitch going round and round working from the outside in. Keep these stitches small.
For the flowers, i did 6 detatched patals and 6 surface petals, i picked one from my garden and used it to copy. For the detatched petals, mount a piece of calico in a small hoop. Take a piece of florist wire and following the petals picture stitch the wire onto the calico, and then cover the wire using BLANKET stitch. To fill in the petal i used LONG and SHORT stitch. Make as many as you want then carefully cut them out as close to the wire as you can. Really sharp scissors are good :) Keeping the tails at the base of the petal to attach them to the main piece.
Stitch the surface petals, outline them first in SPLIT stitch and fill them in LONG and SHORT stitch. Stitch buds in SATIN stitch. Attach petals to the piece with chenille needle making a hole and pushing the wire ends through, stitch these down at the back. Postion them to sit nicely by moving the wires around before securing.