Done - TA-DA!

Here's the finished piece:

The waterlily has been adapted slightly from one in Helen M Stevens' 'Embroidered Flowers' p72. That one was all flat work and the flower was white (except the yellow stamens, of course). This one has been done in two shades of pink with the nearer petals being raised slightly - stiched over felt. The water is done in Madiera stranded silk, which is much thicker than the Pipers Silk the flower and leaf are worked in. Wished I'd used only one strand of Madiera as I feel it's a bit too prominent for its role, although you can't see that here, of course.

This is a close-up of the stumpwork damselfly from the side:


Here's the whole piece again, mounted in the frame (by me, for a wonder! Yes, laced properly on the cardboard and so on), and in the postbox I specially covered with fancy wrapping paper!!!

Will give it to the happy couple tomorrow and hope that they like it.=) Have bought a card this time as I really didn't want to be fussed making one.

Oh, I got a lovely new dress and jacket for the wedding today. It was either that or wear one of my old, old-fashioned ones - again! They were most of them 2nd hand when I bought them too, so it'll be nice to have something swish to wear for a change. The groom's sisters were telling me how pretty my old dresses are and encouraging me to wear one of them, but I can't help thinking that, if a friend deserves so much time and trouble as to make him the above, then he deserves that I should get a decent outfit for his wedding!

Waterlily now done and on with the damselfly

Ooof, this one is taking some time and uuumph! Only I could change projects so as to simplify and end up doing something far harder! Other folk would have more sense.... Anyway, here's what the waterlily looks like now. The water is done with Madeira silk, which is much thicker and far less glossy as it's twisted. The pinks are a little less red in reality, but I took the picture under my daylight lamp rather than in real daylight!!!!

When I came in this evening, I was half amused at the state of the living room, esp. my working corner. Just look at how much stuff is on hand to do one little damselfly stumpwork!! Ridiculous!

The groom's sister has now got her/our present for the wedding and is delighted with it. I'm sure he'll be thrilled with it as well as baby sister did so much of it.=) As soon as he sees it, he'll know I helped her, but naturally he'll be more interested in her portion of it. Rats!!!!!!!LOL!

Waterlily still unfinished, but...

<-Here's the waterlily progress so far:

Horrid photo taken in totally unsuitable light, but it doesn't matter too much at this stage, I think.

Anyway, the reason I didn't get too much of this done is that I decided to get on with finishing up this other piece instead.->

This is a co-operation between my 11 year old chum, Ellie, and me as her gift to her brother on his wedding. (He's the groom of the 31 August wedding and who the waterlily and damselfly piece is to be for from me.) It's been about 50/50 really as it was my idea and I did 95% of the designing (well, taking various elements from other designs and adapting them, but isn't that really what all samplers are??), including making a large scale chart for her to work from. I supplied all the materials, oversaw about 85% of the stitching and started off each piece to show how it was done etc. I also did all the cutting out, put in the ribbon on row 3, the filling stitches on the big heart, the whole row of cross stitch near the bottom and did a lot of fixing up loose ends and stitches that were coming out etc as well as all the sewing up into the bell-pull you see here, which took hours on end yesterday afternoon. Anyway, I hope you all like it and that the happy couple will when they're presented with it next Friday!=)