Embroidering 3-D Rose Leaves

For the past few months I've been working on creating a palette of leaves for a climbing rose bower on my Mrs. Rose block.

First, I figured out a method for making velvet leaves.  I like those very much but I wanted to try my hand at embroidering a few as well.

This week I worked on a couple of approaches for embroidering three-dimensional leaves.  My first attempt was...just that...a first attempt.

In the second attempt, I sandwiched organza with the fabri-solvy...couching the wires to the underneath of the fabric sandwich and embroidering the leaves on the top side.

Once I finished the embroidery, I cut them each out and placed them in water to dissolve the stabilizer.



Over all, they turned out pretty well.  The more I did, the better I became.  A few minor adjustments and I think I have a good approach for going into production.

I had to order more Gloriana Tudor Silk since I only had it in one color, Olivine, and I'd like to have a palette of leaves to choose from when I'm making the final bower.  Luckily, Needle in a Haystack had a range of greens so those should be arriving in the next day or so.

Check out the difference between one strand of 12-strand Tudor Silk on the left and one strand of Gloriana 12-strand silk floss on the right...

The 120/2 twist of the Tudor Silk has a tighter twist than the silk floss, more of a sheen (IMHO), and doesn't "fuzz out" as much as the softer twist.  That's important because I am distressing the thread a bit by putting it into water.

I am loving how they are turning out.  The only down side is that they take about one hour per leaf stem to make, a bit longer than the plain velvet leaves.

I still need to figure out the calyx and the thorns but I am definitely getting closer...

Below you can see the scale of the leaves compared to a penny...

That's it for now.  I'll be working on Japanese embroidery for the next few days where I have tons and tons of goldwork to do.

Happy day!