I recently  bought a book on Silk Ribbon Embroidery.  I saw something on Pinterest and it caught my interest.

I thought I had some silk ribbon but couldn’t find it. If I did, I would have had to dye it anyways.  So, I decided to use regular satin ribbon just to see how well it worked.

I originally wanted to use a  cotton type doily that I had dyed with indigo several years ago.  But no matter what size needle I tried I couldn’t get the ribbon thru the tight weave.

I purchased some cotton/linen material and used that instead.

I was concentrating so much on the technique I forgot to take pics at each step.  It was a bit harder than it looked. No surprise I chose Irises.

I used the Daisy stitch to make the Iris flowers.  The trick is to use the needle to position and fluff out the flowers and leaves.  I used my own design, so I tried to make each flower unique.

The stems were next.  I used some green floss that I positioned pulling it thru at each end, then couched the stem with the same color floss to give a bit of texture.

After I added the leaves, I felt something was missing. Then I added a bit of a bulb under each flower. The final touch was to add a little acrylic yellow paint for the beard on the petals.

The next challenge was to frame it.  Since the ribbon was so brightly colored, I wanted a more subtle mat.  I tried several and settled on a pale green with light specks.  I had to wrap the cloth around a board and secure it with double sided tape before putting the backing on.  That proved to be tricky getting the flowers centered in the mat. The picture colors are not true, the wall is a pale yellow, the mat a pale green.

 

Here are some closeups:

Then I caught a little sunlight on the couch which gives a different perspective.

In the future, I may make a series of flower pics and try the silk ribbon which I think will be a bit easier to work with.  But I’m pleased with the result even though at times the ribbon was a bit unruly.

Have you tried any new techniques lately?