Here’s a look at another circle in our ongoing Circle Sampler series. This one is colourful! Kathleen played with bolder shades to create this tropical colour wool applique flower.
The design and colour choice used to create this stunning applique reminds me of the gorgeous tropical flowers you would find when travelling to the Caribbean or South East Asia. The colours, in particular, are very reminiscent of Birds of Paradise, which varies in colour, but often has shades of green (for the stems), Fuschia and orange.
I often come across Birds of Paradise when I visit my local gardening and supply shop but have never seen one in the wild. Hopefully, we can travel safely soon – could you use a tropical getaway about now?
Here’s how Kathleen stitched this Tropical Coloured Wool Applique
The circle started with a golden yellow wool dye-cut flower, which measures about 2.5 inches. The edges were bordered using bullion stitch in Colour #3 with size 8 Perle cotton. This colour was a great choice as a single thread is a blend of pink, orange and green, which gives the effect that one has used different thread types to create the border.
The flower was layered with a pink wool circle in the centre (measuring 1.25 inches). Kathleen created some texture around the border using a Palestrina stitch and a darker coral. She also added a small yellow circle in the centre (0.75 inches in size) and accented it with some fly stitching and French knots. The colour used for the fly stitch is Colour #29, and the French knot is Colour #61.
Kathleen could have stopped at this point as it would have looked beautiful. But the petals gave her more surface to play so she incorporated some backstitching to each petal using Colour #3 in a size 5 Perle cotton.
Here’s a quick recap just in case you want to stitch your own Circle Sampler Project:
- The circle sampler measures 14 ½ inches wide by 18 inches long – a fat quarter works!
- hand-dyed wool for the background which is pale yellow and a variety of colours for the circles
- features Colour Complements Perle cottons
- there are a total of 30 circles
Stay tuned. More circles are coming!
