Friday Flowers: Stitched Nasturtiums

One wonderful way to keep summer in your heart all year long is to stitch a bouquet of your favorite flowers.  A Sandra Gilmore canvas I fell in love with last year was the absolutely stunning FLEUR FETE, which features a huge bouquet of spicy nasturtiums.  The canvas celebrates Fleur de Paris' 40th anniversary, with nasturtiums (the 40th flower) and a ruby (the 40th stone)....

 It's a large canvas - 15" x 17" - and ahem, it took awhile to get it completely stitched.  Not that the stitching was hard; the stitches were actually very easy, but there was so much canvas to fill!  Lots of wooden table (done with blended threads), lots of background (done in a large, variegated blackwork pattern), and LOTS of different colored nasturtiums to stitch!  Here's a look at the flowers up close:

I decided to work all the leaves in matte DMC Floche, and all the flowers are done with DMC Floss.  I selectively chose some of the petals to pad, while most of them were done in simple diagonal satin stitch.

The antique vase, shown above, was stitched in simple tent/basketweave stitch, but worked entirely with metallic ribbon threads (Ribbon Floss and Neon Rays+)  to replicate a shimmery antique vase.  Then I went back on top and padded just a few of the vase lines to delineate the sunflower motif.

The last thing I stitched was the big ruby jewel in the lower left corner of the vase.  I debated whether to attempt it in beads, but there were soooo many colors in the ruby I chickened out decided against it, and instead worked it all in plain tent stitch, but using extra sparkly Kreinik 1/16th Ribbons.  And I'm glad I did -- it ended up looking surprisingly sparkly and remarkably like beads, so it turned out great!

So if you love nasturtiums as much as I do, and would like to have a bouquet hanging in your house all year round, please consider Sandra Gilmore's gorgeous FLEUR FETE painted canvas, as well as my new stitch guide (which is now available on my website).  In any event, both of those items can be ordered for you from your local stitchery store, so call them to get more information!

HAPPY FRIDAY!