St Cuthbert's Flowers: everything else

Apologies for not having posted anything in ages, but I'm back now.  Even if I wasn't blogging I was sewing, and have finished the St Cuthbert's Flowers panel.  As I've kept you waiting far too long already I won't drag it out any further - this post will cover the rest of the project to completion.

So, last time I'd got as far as the outline of the flowers and leaves in buttonhole stitch.  The next step was to fill them in.  First the leaves, in split stitch:

And then the flowers, in split stitch for the petals and French knots for the centres:

They don't look like much like that, but that's not the finished item - they're cut out and applied to a background of red cotton velvet.  Flowers first this time:

Then the leaves:

The white tacking stitches show the centre of the background fabric, to allow me to get the cut out pieces aligned correctly.

They're rather fluffy round the edges like that, from the by now rather frayed linen, so I edged them in couched gold thread, tucking the fluffy bits in as I went:

Much neater!

I then added stalks, also in couched gold:

The gold threads are couched using the same shade of green as the leaves, to tie it together.

With the tacking stitches removed (or most of them - there's one left in the centre that I missed, though I did spot it later and took it out):

The client specified the finished piece needed to be 54cm x 54cm (21" x 21"), to fit an existing frame.  As it wasn't to be a panel to be hung on its own, I stretched it over a piece of mount board I cut to size, rather than anything stiffer.

Pinned and the corners mitred:

Then the back laced:

Finished!

Even though it's to go in a frame, I also covered the back, using a gold brocade, though unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of that.  It won't be seen, but it finished it off far more nicely than leaving the lacing exposed.

It's now with the client, who seemed very pleased, which is always nice!