Silk Scene Progress

Slowly but surely...in between Dorian preparation and getting ready for the Smocking Arts Guild National Convention, I've made progress. Baby hesitant steps because I've never done "A Scene" before. By the way, I'm working this whole project in a 10" hoop: silk ribbon embroidery should always be hooped. After completing that green ribbon horizon and pink dogwood tree I moved on to the rose bush, but moved it to the right side of the scene. Somehow I didn't think it would look good in front of the wall.  Two colors of cotton floss worked for the stem and branches, a brown and a green, together in the needle using stem and outline stitches up the trunk then up each branch.

To make the branches look more realistic I dropped (and tied off) the brown floss (see below on the wrong side) and worked only with the green floss to the tip of each branch. It thinned the sized perfectly and looked nice.

Spider Web Roses have a base of an uneven number of spokes to weave the ribbon in and out of that are securely knotted so they don't release the silk ribbon. Here you see a pink color to match the ribbon (7mm variegated fuchsia/pinks) with 5 spokes.

With a #18 Chenille needle (big enough for the 7mm ribbon) I came up in the center of the spokes and began weaving alternately under and over them until I covered the spokes. The ribbon can be allowed to curl as it's woven to create a pretty rose. At the end, I just go under an edge to the wrong side and tie off (or rather sew down) the ribbon end.

I also added a little more thickness and length to the bottom of the rose base...it blended beautiful into the original stitches.  The result is a lovely rose bush with 7mm variegated Japanese Ribbon Stitch leaves. The single bud is a Ribbon Stitch with two straight stitch bracts.

Now on to another part of the design.....