My friend Donna and her husband are hosting me on Christmas Day.

So instead of an embroidered card (I will show the cards after Christmas, when the overseas recipients have had a chance to receive theirs), I’m working on an entire piece for her.

It’s a simple piece.

About 2/3 of the way through, it occurred to me how much it resembled the Asparagus Tree design that Kathy of The UnBroken Thread had done in several variations.

My inspiration was actually based on a photo from Di Van Niekirk’s FaceBook photopage. For some reason, LiveWriter isn’t letting me insert the photo. It’s of two roses, with fly stitch branches and a couple of buds, anyway.

Mine is done on some beautiful forest green Dupion that I got from Pearsalls (I’m getting some more forest green Dupion from Ebay and shall compare the quality).

A simple Spider Web Ribbon Rose with a Twirled Ribbon rose centre. The centre is in a plain copper Hannah dyed ribbon, the petals are of a variegated olive/copper Hannah dyed ribbon.

The colours don’t look quite right – there’s more blue in the stem than there should be – but that’s the computer/camera.

The stem is Whipped Running Stitch in 7mm River Silk Ribbon in Olive.

Then there are 3 levels of branches, done in 3 different olive/forest greens. The 2 largest types of branches are done in stem stitch, and the smallest branches (“fronds”) done in fly stitch.

I’ve almost finished – just some more fly stitch to go on the left hand side.

Then I’ll pad it (as per Rachel Wright’s excellent advice), and lace it, using Ruth O’Leary’s instructions from her website, onto a piece of cardboard, and then back that.

I’m waiting for that other Ebay Dupion to arrive, (from America, and I only ordered it yesterday) upon which I can start Vince’s sunflower and Ricky’s daisies. In the interim, I have Sally’s Roses and Pansies to finish.

If there is any extra time while waiting for the Dupion, I’ll start on SilkLover’s piece.

This will be a very special piece, and after all this ribbon embroidery (I’ve done 9 ribbon embroidery cards) it’s a relief/nice change to get back to some more traditional methods.

Heather Castles is a Canadian illustrator. http://blog.illustrationcastle.com/about/

She’s given me permission to use this drawing upon which to base SilkLover’s embroidery :

In return, I’ll give Heather a high resolution picture of the embroidery to use as she wishes.

The thick veins will be heavily padded, then covered in satin stitch in gold Jap or passing thread.

The inserts will be done in sections of different jewel coloured silks, with the veins done in a single strand of matching silk thread.

I shall use various wires to do the various antennae.

The body will probably just be padded satin stitch.

I don’t know if I’ll keep the dots, or use sequins of various sizes. We’ll see when we get there.

I’m looking forward to doing this project – it feels more true to my roots than SRE, tho SRE is very handy for quick and pretty presents.