A Very Purple Flower

Here's another blog-style flower collage (mixing stitched flowers with real flower photos) that features clematis.
(You say CLEM-a-tis, I say cle-MAA-tis - well, however you pronouce it, it's a pretty flower...)

Here's the real flower:


And here's my stitched version:


Clematis come in the most amazing variations of purples (not to mention other colors) so I made a subtle color change on my stitched flowers. Notice how the lower flower is slightly darker than the top two flowers. It also creates the illusion of depth in the piece (instead of having all three flowers the same color). You can see the color effect better in this close-up shot:


At the time, I remember I wanted to make a really spectacular purple statement, so I just used one purple family, but later I wished I had stitched all three flowers in different colors - just to show how amazing these clematis colors are.

As you can see, I wanted a small stitch pattern that wouldn't be too disruptive but would still create a directional pattern (to mimic the the directional changes on each flower petal). Here I used a Cashmire Stitch variation.

And check out those bullion centers! Let's face it, stitchers -- while French Knots have their place and are always fun to make, there's nothing like a sexy Bullion (or two or twenty) to make a really good flower center....

So....doesn't it make you want to have some of these purple beauties climbing in your garden? (Or if you don't want to get your hands dirty, you can always stitch them instead!)