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Friday, August 13, 2010

Traditional Chinese Designs: Lotus Flower

Yesterday, Elmsley Rose of elmsleyrose.blogspot.com wanted to see the pattern I am using for my current project. Hi Elmsley Rose, Here is the pattern you asked for. This pattern of a lotus flower appears on the cover image of the book Traditional Chinese Designs Iron-on Transfer Patterns.



The colors are different from the ones I use. I did not trace the entire design. I needed only the flower part, because I am going to applique the embroidered piece on my daughter's frock. I have slightly modified the design to suit my purpose.

 This book has many lovely designs where most of the designs are very intricate, in other words, challenging for an enthusiastic embroiderer.

Here is the link to the book if you are interested to buy:



At first, I selected a cotton fabric for this project, traced the design, selected the threads, and started stitching. Then only I found out that the fabric is not suitable for long-and-short stitch (usually cotton and linen are the best choices for long-and-short embroidery, but this fabric is not). It is a loosly woven cotton fabric, which, when I stitched, showed tiny holes, and the stitches were not close enough to each other. Therefore, I stopped stitching on that fabric and repeated the same dreadful process of selecting a fabric, tracing the design, selecting thread colors, etc. ... The pictures below will show my painful experience :-( 

 

However, now I am planning to stitch only the outlines of the design (as in Redwork) I drew on that fabric and use it as a napkin or a tablemat, because the fabric is good for outline stitches though not for filling stitches. The fabric I use now is a dark pink georgette. Though it is transparant, it is a good choice (according to me) for this type of embroidery. However, the fabric should be stretched properly to get fixed tightly on your embroidery hoop or frame, else your stitches will become loose, which will make your embroidery look displeasing. And here is my progress of the project today. I guess I am slow with my progress.

 

Please post your comments and ideas.

6 comments:

MeganH said...

Are you using a backing at all for added stability for the gorgette? If it's working fine, then it probably doesn't matter.

What do you mean, slow? L&S stitch takes ages, coz you have to judge where each stitch goes, and get it at the right angle. I'd say you're going at a fine pace.

And the design looks lovely :-) Thanks :-) You've got me interested in that book now!

Lakshmi said...

Thank You Flora for sharing the design..your new project is coming up nice..wil be waiting to see how you are going to do applique with georgette....

deepa said...

Hope you get enough time to finish this with the baby and all :) Great start,now waiting for the finish :)

Flora said...

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your comments. I wish I finish this project soon.

Elmsley Rose: I am not using any backing fabric now. However I'll use one when I applique the design. Thanks for your suggestion.

Digitizing Services said...

WOW, simple love the lotus flower cover image of the book. great job.

Embroidery Digitizing said...

Love that traditional design of Lotus flower. Thnak you for the creativity and inspiring post.

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