Silver Swirls - Royal School of Needlework Project

This project is called "Silver Swirls" and is designed by Lisa Bilby, a RSN teacher (or tutor, as they say in the UK).  Please check out her website, as she does hold classed elsewhere in the UK on occasion.  Here are the threads and some green beads that came with the kit. Notice the DMC cotton floss. This is a beginning class so cotton is used instead of silk.

This closeup shows a bit better the progress I made while in the class. The kit came with the design drawn in pencil on cotton muslin. The first thing we did was to cut out the felt shapes and stitch them onto the design with stab stitches, coming up in the felt and going down just on the outside. This prevents the felt from getting ragged and results in a nice, clean border. It sounds obvious but I never even thought about it before. We made pretty good progress on the long and short stitch, couched down the silver plated smooth passing thread and the super pearl purl, and added a bead to the tip of the passing thread. The pearl purl was slightly stretched and couched with silver sewing thread on each side of the little paisley shape. Then we overstretched it and wrapped one of the green embroidery threads around it, and couched it with the same thread to make the swirl on the left of the small paisley.  I've managed to add a bit of the bright check to the small padded shape.

I have only used two of the green threads on the long and short stitch so far. I'll add the darker color as soon as I can get to it. Our teacher had us use two strands of floss for this, something I've never heard of before. I've always seen long and short stitch (or needlepainting, or silk shading) worked with one strand. It looks good here, though.

The venue for the class was simply amazing. It was at Hampton Court Palace where Henry VIII once lived.

As you can see, the daffodils were riotous!