Purple Pearl: Fuschia Tutorial

I apologize for a 2 Am tutorial, but I'm excited after completing these flowers. I may be editing this after some sleep!

For these flowers, I chose a new batch of ribbon that I bought from SilkStudio (http://www.etsy.com/shop/SilkStudio) in lovely shades of deep purple, varying light purple and thin pure white.
To begin, lock your darker color (in this case, the dark purple) onto your chenille needle and make two straight stitches. Leave about two needle widths between the stitches. The stitch can be as long as you like, experiment!


Bring your needle up above where you have made your straight stitches. I like to make these as close as possible to the initial straight stitches, but you may want to start a little higher depending on how full you will like these full straight stitches. Make a few straight stitches across the top of of first two stitches, but place the needle very close to where you come up and do not pull the ribbon through- let a little loop form.


Well done! Fasten off the dark purple and thread your next lightest color. I locked on my light purple and set about make very loose, artsy ribbon stitches. You want to bring these up near your purple 'loop' stitches and let them lay over the tops of them. Play with the ribbon to get it to lay in a nice fuschia shape. Remember that with ribbon stitches, you place the needle through the ribbon and pull through. To keep from pulling your pretty ribbon stitch through, place your off hand against the hoop and a finger over the stitch.

Once you get a few nice looking stitches, fasten off the ribbon and select your white stamen color. The next stitches are very easy- a few straight stitches beneath the dark purple straight stitches. Go ahead and add a few more flowers. You can create unfinished buds with a lazy daisy stitch placed under a french knot.

Here's another 'how to' with the loop straight stitches:


Here's a few completed flowers!

As soon as I can, I'll get back on with how to add leaves to these flowers. I hope that you've enjoyed the tutorial!
*Edit* The tutorial has been added. See the new tutorials - stem & leaves- to see how to go from there to here:



~Anne