I have been slowly stitching down the applique flower pieces for my Indian Paintbrush landscape piece. You can see prior steps here.

I started by laying out the background flower applique pieces for distant flowers. I still haven’t decided if there is more stitching needed for stems and leaves. I’m waiting until I have the foreground flowers in place. I don’t want to add too much detail to the background.

I used very simple straight stitching to adhere these small flowers. I purposely made the stitches longer than the fabric as Indian Paintbrush have a frayed edge. I tried to make the stitches random sizes and directions.

Next up was to add the center flower. I went ahead and added the two stems on the right side to make sure I had the flowers in the right place. All of the placement of applique pieces was done by eye. I didn’t try to mark where they were to go as the markings usually tend to stay when I don’t want them to. I appliqued the cotton organdy applique pieces in place with small stitches, a very fine needle, and one strand of cotton floss.

Then it was a matter of continuing to add pieces and stitching them in place. I listen to podcasts while I’m doing hand stitching as it is definitely “slow stitch”.

The center flower is now completely stitched down.

Here’s a closer view of the flower and the stitching. It’s possible that I could add more detailed stitching over the top of the foreground flowers but I haven’t decided yet. I should have made a sample so I could try out some different ideas but I forgot and I don’t think I have any more green silk for a sample piece. That’s what I get for not planning enough!