How to stitch Snowdrops. Quick and Easy!

Snowdrops

There have been some lovely photos of this years crop of snowdrops on Facebook.

The following embroidered panel was created by myself about 40 years ago.  All the flowers, trees, birds and insects that are in the song are in the panel.

This picture is of stitched snowdrops.

“In an English Country Garden.”

The photos I took 40 years ago are now faded and lack their focus.  I took this one of the original panel today.  The colour of the background fabric is not accurate.  It is a turquoise furnishing fabric.  The pink flowers are wild roses and the birds in the grass are Pigeons.

How to stitch Snowdrops.

Snowdrops are vivid white and bloom early in the spring. Perlé White No 3 gives the flowers sparkle. Perlé No 5 can be used if you are stitching on a larger scale. White DMC works well, too. The leaves are stitched in Straight Stitch using only three threads as the snowdrop is a smaller plant than daffodils or narcissi. The stalks become invisible among the flowers and leaves.

Strand your threads: Use one thread of each of the following greens.

Green:  319 (1) + 320 (1) + 987 (1) = 3.

Straight Stitches:

Flowers: White Perlé No 3 or No 5 or DMC white (4).

There are three ways to stitch a snowdrop flower.

1) Chain Stitch upside down with the catch stitch at the top.`

2) Chain stitch upside down but make the catch stitch slightly longer. Add a stitch on the outside by threading it under the catch stitch. Hold the thread firmly under your work and use the eye of the needle first to go under the catch stitch. This prevents splitting the thread. This is called a Slipped Chain Stitch.

Stitch some leaves, add some flowers, add more leaves and flowers until the group is the size you wish. You will find that you will be over-stitching flowers on top of leaves.

To complete the flowers, use the green thread and over-stitch the white catch threads.

This is one of the 23 spring flowers in my book Handstitch Recognizable Spring Flowers.