
It’s wonderful to see just how a simple design can be transformed into something unique with a little imagination and creativity! This is exactly what happened with this winter-inspired circle in our circle sampler series. Amazing how a straight-forward flower-shaped applique can be a blank canvas for a beautiful, contemporary winter scene.
Plenty of imagination and love was infused into this project, but it came with some inspiration. Our Circle Sampler project was inspired by Sue Spargo’s Toned Down Circle Sampler. My friend Kathleen created a different version selecting her own stitches and ideas and this was one of them.
While the stitching around the petals reminds me of snowflakes, I love the complementary colours that were used to create some balance around the cooler colour palette. The warmth of the golden yellows and the way it has been stitched together is reminiscent of a sunburst. Whenever I look at this applique, I think of a bright and balmy winter day.
Here’s how this winter-inspired circle sampler was created
This circle sampler starts off with a simple 2.5-inch dye cut blue wool flower bordered with a chain stitch using Colour #175 in size 8 Perle cotton.
As mentioned previously each petal takes on a beautiful snowflake-style design. This was achieved by creating accents with 0.5-inch pale-turquoise wool circles and embellished using a fly stitch. The threads used for this included Colour #162 in size 8 Perle cotton.
The center yellow (the sunburst design) was created using a 0.75 inch circle and is bordered with rows of split stitch in size 5 Perle cotton in Colour #29. This is further embellished using Colonial knots in the same colour and thread size.
Thank you Kathleen for your creativity and stitching flare! I’ll add this to my list of favourites.