Secret Garden Center

Hi everyone,
Loved it on 1st Oct when it was the center block for Secret Garden that Esther gave us.
Having no idea what it would be it was fabulous seeing the so romantic looking block with all its flowers. Dived straight in as it was an easy choice for the stems and little flowers in the corners.

Same fabrics as my triangles 

Love the shape of the stems, a knot celtic look to them although from some angles they do remind me of fish, cute fish though.

For the center decided to use my contrast fabric and also use the dark fabric from my little squares.

Don't have a lot of that so had been keeping it for the right time.

With my contrast fabric a butterfly became perfect choice for the very center.

Next to go one was the leaves below the flowers, are they the sepals am never sure. used fabric that I thought would work but in place it was a little washed out looking, not quite green enough so used pencils to colour them up a little.

In the left photo the top left leaf is the fabric only while the others have been coloured. On the right is the same leaf with extra colour, not a huge change but a big difference overall to how it shows up.

Easy so far but the flowers were next. Knew I wanted to tie in the colours of the blocks especially block one where I used a mix of colours for my flowers while the others are more a single theme and all in shades of pink/purple.

My design wall got a lot of use while putting the flowers together so I could check the balance.

Ended up with two each of four different flowers, Pink, peach, pink/peach and peach/purple.

Stitching I did with variegated thread and again there were different threads for each tone of flower.

Thought for a bit about what to do for the stamens, then tested out my idea and it worked using my favourite gold metallic thread, Maderia No 3 which is a very soft almost antique looking gold.

To stitch them I stitched out with triple stitch right to the end of the stamen then turned and set machine to an oval embroidery stitch  ( #94 on my Bernina 440 ) with the width reduced from 5.5 to 3.5.

Stitching over my triple stitch with it gave fullness to it as well and ensured a good coverage with a fine thread. Changed back to triple stitch and stitched back to the start giving thickness to the stem.

Just how I wanted it to look.

Last decision was to add the butterflies. I have them in every block and while they have filled the open spaces on each side they don't seem to have taken anything away from the block.

I have sewn the little blocks into rows for the border but not attached them yet and my design wall is so full of Secret Garden that not sure where I can add anymore, wish it was big enough to pin it out to the measurement and I could try and guess what else is to come.

Now I can go back to my Red Delicious blocks until the 15th and the 3rd part of On My Window.

Linking to Esther's WOW

Enjoy your stitching Everyone,

Cheers Jenny