Have A Heart Swap

I wanted to show off a pretty heart I embroidered with silk ribbon for a swap going on at our Hand Embroidery Yahoo Group! I was inspired by some antique china I saw on e-bay and used what I had seen on the china to help me create a pattern. This was my first free hand design completely on my own.

1. I used a water erasable pen and drew on the fabric an outline of where I wanted the middle flowers and then drew in the vines extending out from it.
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3. I then embroidered the vines in with 2 strands green cotton floss using the back stitch.
4. After that I embroidered the middle flowers using variegated 7mm Bucilla silk ribbon. I stitched a spider web rose with Japanese ribbon stitches on the sides and tacked loop stitches around one side. Also I made a decorative lazy daisy stitch flower with a colonial knot in the middle, and two colonial knot flowers.
   
5. Next I took the water erasable pen again and eyeballed where I thought flowers would look nice on the vines.
6. I embroidered the little flowers on the vine in 4mm Bucilla silk ribbon using the colonial knot stitch.
7. Then I took 4mm Bucilla silk ribbon using the Japanese ribbon stitch and placed leaves all around where it felt right.
8. Can you find my initials "MA"? I hid them on a vine near a flower with green floss. I'm thinking in the future I may start using a signature bee...but first I need to learn how to stitch a bee!

If you would like to see more of my Silk Ribbon Embroidery Click Here