Y’all, I got the new beginning needle-painting book by Trish Burr! I started my first project this weekend – it’s not the simplest or smallest project in the book by a long shot, but I liked it. I want to work my way up to realistic birds. I’ve finished two leaves and the stems so far. I started on the bud, but I had poor lighting and couldn’t see the differences in the pink shades so I’ll probably have to restart it.
The hardest part was fitting all those colors into those dadgum leaves! I had to fit four colors into half a leaf. You can’t make the long stitches half an inch like I usually do if the leaf ain’t even half an inch wide. Here they are next to a skein of floss for some perspective on size:
Anyway, let me know if you have suggestions for improvement – I have four more leaves left! Here is a better photo of them.
One thing I really like is that Trish Burr chose different kinds of greens. They range from light to dark, but they also change colors – some are more blue, some are more olive, some are more yellow. You’ll also notice the petal and leaf edges are more wavy than stylized shapes.
Anyone else working projects from the book? I’d love to hear from you!
embroidery for ducks 
I agree with you regarding the change of colours of the leaves in Trish Burr’s works. That is what drew me to her book to begin with. Then I learned how much nicer one strand of thread covers the fabric!
Not familiar with this book. But Tanja Berlin had said she would be doing a needlepainting class through Shining Needle Society at some point this fall. Haven’t heard anything yet, but I, for one, am looking forward to learning more about this technique. If you’re not familiar with Tanja’s work, her website is http://www.berlinembroidery.com. I took a blackwork Love Birds class with her and it was better than excellent!…julie castle
For me the bigger leaf looks good.How about adding 1-2 stitches in the middle with the darkest green shade which you’d used in the smaller leaf?.I don’t have that book,but it’s in my wish list. could you please post the leaf part alone from the original image?
I don’t have the book, but I took an online class from here earlier this year, the Chinese Flower Project. After you stitch the first color, you need to come in deep into the stitches with the second and subsequent colors, much more than you would think. Buy her DVD, it shows how she does it and is worth every penny.
I think y’all are quite right, my stitching on later layers is not going deep enough. Longer stitches!
I agree, you need to go really deeply into the color before to make it really well blended and not as noticeable a color change. I have a hard time with it myself as I keep thinking I need to make separate bands of color. It isn’t really separate bands – I keep a picture of painting with water colors in my head – they sort of bleed into each other fairly deeply if your paper is wet – that is the effect I try for. Anywho – it looks lovely. I’ve got to finish up a few things before I can start in on that book. I have my linen already, though. 😛
Well, I had the sizing figured out for long-and-short stitch on larger shapes. But trying to shrink it down to this tiny little thing is hard!
I don’t have the book, yet 🙂 I was very tempted when it came out, but now I think I will not resist any more!
The thing is that long-and-short stitch is simple in concept, difficult in execution. You’re already on the right track, you’ve had a lot of great suggestions, now all you have to do is keep at it.
But thoughtfully, mindfully, and analytically.
I am currently working through Trish’s on-line course and am learning heaps from it. I agree that it is difficult to fit so many shade changes into the tiny shapes and as others have suggested, you have to go deep into the preceding row. The resulting shapes look slightly padded.
I started on some petals last night and was really pleased with my stitching but then realised that I had forgotten to change shade and done it all in one colour! Had to unpick it all!
I think you are doing really well; your stitching is very neat.
I think your leaves look very nice. It is a challenge ‘stuffing’ several colours in a small area, isn’t it? I notice that you have the threads ‘parked’ off to the side. I do that as well as I find on some of the pieces that I literally sketch with the threads and frequently have to change colours.
I agree with the previous commenters especially about going deep into the next section. You need a good foundation on which to lay in each new shade of colour as you progress. I think it’s probably better to have a little too much stitching on a given ‘row’ of colour rather than too little.
I am a veteran of several Trish Burr pieces. I love how she mixes colours. I’m planning on doing 6 of the projects from the latest (beginner) book as exercises. I’ve posted photos of some of my previous Trish Burr projects at Needle ‘n Thread under ‘Ask & Share: Gallery….’. If you want to check them out they have titles that begin with ‘Needle Painting:…”. The violet from the beginner book is there. (My name on Needle ‘n Thread is ‘margaretc’.)
Keep going. I can’t wait to see how this project progresses!
Thanks for the advice! I’m off to check out your work right now.
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