from book The Embroidery at the Burrell Collection, Liz Burrell, page 106

Here is the naked primrose, just done with DMC :

And then,

(please excuse the sparkle)

Elizabethan twist added around the petals. Elizabethan twist isn’t normally used for outlining, I understand. It’s either one or two lines of passing thread (usually two) or Pearl Purl. But I had this tiny length of Elizabethan twist that a friend had given me as a sample, and it was a good opportunity to make use of it.

Ceylon stitch around the calyx. There is actually a small gap visible on the real thing – as I was coming back up the right side (doing Ceylon stitch upsidedown) I suddenly switched to doing it right side up.

oh – I didn’t do the red at the edge of the flower because I liked the smooth lines of the DMC yellow. It’s been awhile since I’ve just worked satin stitch.

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from the Victoria & Albert Museum's Textile Collection: Embroidery in Britain from 1200 to 1759 (King and Levey) Figure 36.

After a little consultation with Mary Corbet of NeedlenThread,

I did the primrose flower using Lurex. Normally, one would use passing thread, but I’ve run out.

I tried using some thick Jap, but it was impossible trying to get it to turn at the innermost tip of the petal, where the petal starts from pretty much nothing, then goes to less than 2 mm, then slowly gets bigger.

There is brick stitching in the petals, and a french knot in the middle.

With the calyx, I actually laid down two pieces of waxed string – you can see the bare gold where it sits over the string.

I thought about outlining the calyx, rather than having the wavy effect, but I think it looks alright.

I went to use Lurex with the calyx as well – but this time  - the calyx being bigger, the Lurex was too thin. You could see the string between the lines of Lurex, no matter how much I tweezed and finger-nailed to get them close together (the thickness of the silk thread I was couching with would have been a factor too).

So I used the thick Jap on it – and it worked fine. Just that bit of difference in size of the motif made all the difference in the gold metal thread that I could use.

Note that I have omitted all swear words that I actually used when doing this motif.

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Exciting news – when my next lot of supplies arrive from Tanya Berlin, I’ll be doing

I’m going to get ‘roll-in-the-grass-green’ from slowCOLOR for the silk. (I got their other threads the other day. What can I say at the moment, not having used it? It’s filament thread, great colours!)

Well, I’m pretty excited, anyway. I’ve ordered over 200 2-3 mm rice freshwater pearls and they are waiting for me at the post office.