Well, I finally picked up my stumpwork embroidery project again. Since it has been a while, as a reminder, I decided to teach myself stumpwork using this free flower pattern from The Floss Box.

Now, The Floss Box does provide a tutorial for stitching the flower petals, but I felt like I needed some additional hand-holding. I searched YouTube for tutorial videos, but mostly they were in Russian, and I started getting frustrated because I wasn’t sure how to get started with the filling stitches for the interior of the petal and I wanted to make sure I was doing it “the Right Way.”

Deep breath.

Then I saw that Craftsy was having one of its ubiquitous sales over the weekend, so I broke down and grabbed the “Stumpwork: Raised Embroidery Essentials” class for $19.99. Although I feared I was throwing 20 bucks down the drain, the class ended up being super helpful. I skipped to Lesson 5, which deals with the wire slips, and watched several portions of it over and over to see what the instructor was doing. The class helped me to get over my fear and hesitation enough to complete my first petal!

The interior of the petal turned out fine. But, I do need to work on my buttonhole stitch for the remaining petals.

In stumpwork embroidery, everyone recommends using wrapped wire. But, when I was shopping for supplies for the project originally, I could not find wrapped wire in the right gauge, so I thought, “Pfft, I don’t really need wrapped wire. What difference does it make?” Well, it turns out it does make a difference. My wonky buttonhole stitches have gaps which allow the gleam of the metal wire to peek through the threads, which doesn’t look great. If I had been using a white wrapped wire, the gaps would not be as noticeable. Live and learn.

So, I’m going to be more careful with my buttonhole stitches for the remaining four flower petals.