Thirty Fifth Anniversary!

Our Coral wedding anniversary - so, even though we don't often exchange anniversary gifts - I made this coral fragment, based on the methods taught by Meredith Woolnough, in her book, Organic Embroidery.  I thoroughly recommend it!  Lots of ideas, tips and tricks.  I'm sure that you will be as mesmerized as me!

I started with my design for a coral - although I did wonder if I'd made a winter tree branching system instead, even with the cross joining 'limbs'.

After transferring it onto water soluble fabric (using a water soluble pencil) I started to stitch it.

It's hard to tell, but I actually used three different colours of thread - perhaps they were too similar to each other, as it's difficult to see them clearly.

After dissolving the fabric and drying the embroidery, it was time to mount it using pins.  This photo is where I try to show the depth behind the embroidery, and the shadow that it casts.

Finally, here it is mounted.  Again, I'm trying to show you the shadows!

This wasn't my first attempt - but is certainly my largest, finishing at about 7" in diameter.  My earlier attempts were of leaves, and were all much smaller than this, and great as samples whilst I learnt the techniques!
 

And was my DH pleased?  Yes, I think that he was!