Here is another guest post from Laura (aka Mom) about The Big Green.

The big blue and purple crocheted delphiniums have their floss counterparts embroidered in buttonhole stitch in the background.

Gold, brown, and tan floss in seed stitch forms a background for the delphiniums and also provides a base for the line of pink tulips in the distant background. The golden browns morph into the yellow flowers surrounding the blue and purple. These complementary (or almost so) colors next to each other really glow.

The Timeless Art of Embroidery by Helen M. Stevens contains many wonders. Her spiderwebs are so wonderful – I wanted one and she has instructions. After a few chuckles over the results I deleted said web and tried again….. and then again. Following a few expletive deleteds, I realized that my technical proficiency was just not adequate to the challenge. I removed the web again and used a single strand of floss and plain sewing thread to sew a spider web in running stitch. It is not as elegant as I would like but at least it looks like a spider web. Moral: Never give up – There is always a way.

The ground along the bottom edge is extended across the entire piece. The colors shift along the length to reflect or contrast with the colors of the flowers and leaves just above. Along part of the strip the colors are a mixture of browns, golds, and tans while in other sections pink and gold predominate. Beads are added where a special bit a glitter will direct the eye to points of interest.

Small pink flowers and leaves in floss finish the edge on the left. More ferny shapes appear again as well. Pink flower beads repeat the motif first seen in crochet.

This photo shows two entirely different ways of creating shapes. Some are formed by positive spaces, others by negative space. The leaves formed by either crochet or embroidery are positive space shapes.  However, filling in the background around leaf shapes that are outlined in stem stitch with densely packed textural stitches also creates sharply defined leaves. These are formed from negative space (background = everything else in a picture that isn’t a shape).

Enough for today.