A Fishbone Leaf and the Rest of the Sampler

My list of Elizabethan stitches (posted awhile ago) is still undergoing revision, never mind linking each stitch to blog entries where it is used.
But I thought I’d tick off one of stitches in the list to get it out of the way. I had a suitable leaf waiting.
The first thing I did was an outline in a pair of gold passing threads. I hadn’t done a double outline before – motifs filled in laid passing thread yes, but not just an outline.
Goldwork A-Z taught me how to sink all 4 threads at the bottom of the leaf to get a nice pointy end.

I chose dark teal for the colour, to balance the shaded teal long leaf I’d done on the other side of the bird.
I wanted to use coral stitch to do the vein, but I discovered that making the knots for the coral stitch was disturbing the laid lines of the herringbone stitch, so I just used Outline Stitch instead.
I think the vein looks a bit choppy – the stitches should have been a bit longer, I think. I’ll probably re-do it.

Instead, I’m doing a bud using coral stitch as a filling (another tick in the Stitches list) but that’s a post for tomorrow or the next day.
I think the double passing thread makes a very nice outline. (A lot of tweezer work though!)
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I listed in a post yesterday or the day before the motifs I need to finish in order to mark the halfway point in the sampler. (Except the bird – I’m leaving him for very last).
I missed a couple of things, but it’s all just small stuff now, with the exception of the Dusty Pink Rose up in the top left corner.
.
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Here’s the other half of the sampler :
(and incidentally, you can see the dark teal leaf opposite the shaded teal leaf, although the dark one has come out very dark in the photo)
The “official half way point” is where everything is finished up to the peapods on the left and the pomegranates on the right if you were to draw a horizontal line across.

On the left side, travelling down from the halfway point there are 3 semi-detached peapods, (how could I not do peapods?!), two roses, and a semi-detached tulip.
The centre below the halfway line mirrors the centre of the top half – a pearl rose (like the one I just did, that you can partly see in the top of the photograph), a straight line topped by a dog rose and two buds. Then the confection of strawberries.
On the right side, travelling down from the halfway point, there are 2 pomegranates, 2 honeysuckle and then a marigold.
There is a large variety of insects, buds and leaves (lots and lots of leaves) in amongst all that – I’m only giving the barest of detail.
For your delectation, I’ll show some of my choices for the second half of the sampler.
I was unable to pick only 2 from a final list of 3 pomegranates, so I’ve decided to change one of the roses to a pomegranate.
The 3 pomegranates :

http://2-minute-website.com/site/trustfund.trial/Spence-Collection-at-Bath-23362-23389

http://2-minute-website.com/site/trustfund.trial/Spence-Collection-at-Bath-23362-23389

http://dept.kent.edu/museum/exhibit/embroidery/main.htm
The Marigold :

from a glove at the V&A (dratted broken TinyURLs)
The Tulip :

(or I may do a different one – there are a multitude of choices),
Again, a broken TinyUrl, but there is a very similar one at http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/09/euwb/ho_29.23.1.htm
Some buds :

from a V&A glove and

http://www.artsmia.org/viewer/detail.php?v=12&id=4797
and
The Bee :– just one of the insects, but I think he’s adorable.

http://www.artsmia.org/viewer/detail.php?v=12&id=4797
I also intend to do the Plain and Fancy Worms from the Plimouth Project.

Ceylon Stitch

The Ceylon stitch between the dog rose and the pearl rose was wobbly, as Eowyn pointed out.


So I’ve re-done it.
I used 3 strands of forest green DMC, and one strand of Jap No 1. I wanted to use thread (not gold thread) to be kinder to the ground, which is a bit harassed.
It certainly looks a lot, lot better than it did.

My Ceylon stitching is still far from perfect. Each row is supposed to look like two chain stitches side by side, with some backing going on behind it. I’ve got that happening in patches, but not all the way through. The gold causes any changes in tension to stand out.
Tension, tension, tension (of the thread). Gotta get it right.
I decided it needed a little more gold, and so did straight stitches over 1 in Lurex.

So now, a greener sampler :
 
Much straighter!

Pearl Rose Finished, and Strawberry Outlines

The pearling and purling has been finished :

It was all surprisingly easy to do. I think that I have a good eye for short lengths after spending 7 years doing calligraphy and illumination. I only mis-cut 4 purl lengths in the entire flower (wow, go me!)
I did get a bit caught on the largest petal (top left-ish). I was purling along at an angle, and suddenly realized that the purl in the middle would need to be straight (at 90 degrees to the petal). I did a little manipulation with placement of purl lengths (slightly curved) to get the straightness without leaving any ground/felt gaps showing.
The next thing was the centre.
I traced the centre’s shape with tracing paper, and then cut two layers of yellow felt in the corresponding shape. I made it a tiny bit bigger, so at to sit over the edges of the Grecian twist.
Pins securing the felt so I could sew it down :

The sewn down felt :

I sewed it down in the centre as well, and saw that it made an even surface right across (no dip in the middle, which I didn’t want. I would have added a smaller circle of felt on top if so. I’ve read that it’s quite ok to have smaller felt shapes on top of larger ones, as long as they are sewn down properly.
Then I took some Super Pearl Purl and starting from the middle, started to couch the purl down.
It was pretty easy, – the purl had been coiled so it had a natural shape that wanted to go in a circle.

I did end up a bit off-centre. I think it looks more off-centre in this photo than in does in the photo of the full sampler below.
My placement of the felt must have been a bit off. I ended up sewing over pearls on the right, and still had felt to cover on the left. You can see the Purl looks loose on the right because I couldn’t couch *through* the pearls.
The sampler at the moment :

Above the bird, I’ve added a couple of leaves. (Naughty Megan – should have practised before drawing them directly on the ground).
They will both be semi detached, like this :
from an image in the V&A museum. (dratted broken TinyUrl that I can’t reverse).
The ground is done in long and short stitch, and then the same shape (detached buttonholed in a seperate frame) is partially sewn on top. Wire would be needed at the edges of the top shape to get it to curl like that.
The ivy leaf will mirror the colours in the blue/green strawberry trefoil at the top of the sampler.
The shape of the other leaf ended up a bit …..strange. It’s, erm, a fantasy leaf.
Speaking of strawberries, Eowyn had recommended in her review of my sampler that I outline the strawberry flowers in black or grey.
Here they are :

They do stand out a lot better – especially the tiny ones right at the top.
You might also notice that the Ceylon stitch line between the dog rose and the Pearl rose has been frogged. I’m going to do it again (next task). I’m thinking dark green YLI with Jap No 1, in Ceylon stitch. My ceylon stitch has improved rather since I originally did this – one of the first things I did on the sampler.
I’m thinking about either using raised back stitch, or whipping the edges of the ceylon stitch in Jap No 1. I’ll see what it looks like when I’ve done the line. The poor, poor ground there.
You’ll notice a twiggy line near the snail – a small piece of goldwork yet to do. Even tho I’ve gotten quite far down the sampler (past the middle) there is still a bit to be done in the filled part
- two spiral trellis buds
- that goldwork segment
- completion of the pink dusty rose (I think I’m working far enough away from it now that it’s safe to finish, and attach the other three layers of petals.
- fill in bits of vein that can then be filled in
I was very interested to read about tapering Plaited Braid Stitch at http://thistle-threads.com.mytempweb.com/blog/index.php/2009/03/more-tips-on-tapering-plaited-braid/
(the new Plimouth Jacket blog). I’ll be a lot more careful about tapering my double line of reverse chain stitch now  - using a single stitch in the middle at the end.

More Pearling and Purling

I’ve added in the silk. It’s Rolling in the Grass Green from slowCOLOR at Etsy – a filament silk.
I found it easy to sew with, and only encountered 2 slubs.
In unrolling some Russet Red (from the same seller) I saw it was much much slubbier. The indigo was exceedingly fine, and I didn’t come across any slubs in the several yards I unrolled.
So it’s thumbs up for this silk. (I’ll take the slubbiness of the Russet Red as part of it’s nature). It shines like glass at certain angles.
I’ve never used filament silk before, but didn’t run into any problems.
I would have liked to take the green out a little further, as per the original motif, but it would have impacted on the other motifs
Looking at the original image, it looks more like 1/4 of a Splendor thread was used – a thicker thread.
Just a bit more purling to do!
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The centre is looking better now all the pearls are in.
What I think I’ll do is lay over a piece of felt to make an ‘even middle’ and then curl pearl purl around and around in a circle. I need a felt base if I’m to use purl. There is a felt base right down in the middle of the centre, but ‘going down there’ will emphasize the strange shape of the centre.
Yes, there is such a thing as Nature, but I need the centre to be vaguely round. There’s not even a name for the shape it is at the moment.
I have also removed the long ladder stitch from this rose to the dog rose. It was wobbly. It was annoying me. I’m going to do it again.
Maybe in silk, which is kinder to the ground. The ground is looking a bit stressed because I’ve done ladder stitch over it 2 or 3 times now in Lurex. Silk will be kinder in there will be less pulling. Maybe do some raised stem stitch in gold metal thread over that!
(So reverse what Eowyn suggested :-)

Pearl Rose II, or Pearling and Purling

(click to enlarge, since I've done this in Blogger)

Those are 2-3 freshwater rice pearls. I suspect some of them are potato pearls (the rounder ones with the stripe in the middle)

And then bright check purl. I have a little leeway in getting the length right - if it's a tiny bit long, the end can go under the Grecian Twist.

It's actually quite boring (or should I say - Zen). Just sewing pearls, and cutting and sewing purl.

I'm looking forward to adding the silk sepals - that should really bring it out.

Have to do something about that centre.....and pity the petals aren't all the same size.

The Pearl Rose

This appeared on a glove in “Fashion in Detail 1700-1800”

I had more photos, but they’ve disappeared from my camera (!)
A base of white felt, with 5 x 45 degree triangles cut out of the edge so the green silk can lie flat between each of the petals.
Outlining in Grecian Twist
(described by Tanya Berlin here : http://www.berlinembroidery.com/goldworkthreads1.htm#grecian

I was surprised at the small amount of difference between the fine and medium Grecian twists. The fine twist is used in the “inner” flower.
I learnt how to handle Grecian Twist from Country Bumpkin A-Z. It’s easy.
I will need to do a raised centre of some sort, since it didn’t exactly end up circular.
I’m just starting to add pearls. I’m simply sewing through each pearl twice using a bead needle and thread.

Pink Blossom

I did put up a picture of (what I think are foxgloves) but I decided to do these instead because of the size issue. (You’ll see the size in a minute)

I wanted to do mine in pink. That was ok – I found 1 pink set in the Burrell Collection book, and 3 in ‘Twixt.
Here’s the base of the flower that sits on the ground.
It’s in Soie D’Alger cream silk in long and short stitch with a few split stitches added in.
The base is outlined in black.

Here’s the top of the flower, being done with a cordonette in a seperate frame. 3 shades of pink, with the darkest pink as an outline at the bottom.

Here are the stitches I need to cut through to free the flower top ….

The freed flower top (in a very dark photo), with my stork scissors placed next to it for perspective. If I did the foxglove, I’d have two pieces half this size (vertically) plus a much smaller piece (the calyx). Yikes!

And here’s the completed flower, with wool shoved up his bum to give him a nice ‘rise’.

The top was attached with black thread, as per the picture (my edging is a bit further in than in the picture)
Thankyou so much to Jeanne W (especially for the tip to leave the last few rows of the top unattached to the ground, so they’d curl) and to Eowyn, both of whom helped me on how to do raised work in general.

Mystery Flower and Gold Leaf

Remember this?

http://elmsleyrose.blogspot.com/2009/03/historical-sampler-buttonhole-flower.html
Eowyn (Melinda Sherbring) suggested that it just might be a ranunculus. I do know that Mrs Christie did take flowers from embroideries and tapestries from 1200 to 1700 or 1800 (not modern ones).
I had a look for some history and found :
“The history of Ranunculus cultivars is rather startling, with unexpected ups & downs of popularity. According to Alice M. Coates' reconstruction in Flowers & Their Histories (1956), we find its rise & decline goes something like this: John Gerard writing in the late 1590s knew only one variety, a double dark red, while John Parkinson in 1633 knew but eight, whereas twenty were cataloged in the Royal Gardens in Paris in 1665. This slow start led to a veritable explosion of varieties, for near the end of the next century, in a 1792 plant catalog from James Maddock, there were a whopping 800 named cultivars! “
http://www.paghat.com/ranunculusficaria.html
From Elizabethan Flowers http://home.netcom.com/~janeabbt/flowers/browse.html

Ranunculus	aconitifolius		white, double form	Florilegium/1612	Emanual Sweerts/Amsterdam & Frankfurt
Ranunculus	acris	Meadow Buttercup		Checklist of English native plant species	Dr. Chris Preston/England
Ranunculus	asiaticus		white inside/red outside, double form; orange-vermillion, double form; brownish red; white/pink speckles; yellow/red stripes	Florilegium/1612	Emanual Sweerts/Amsterdam & Frankfurt
Ranunculus	bulbosus flore pleno		yellow	Florilegium/1612	Emanual Sweerts/Amsterdam & Frankfurt
Ranunculus	bulbosus	Bulbous Buttercup		Checklist of English native plant species	Dr. Chris Preston/England
Ranunculus	bullatus		yellow	Florilegium/1612	Emanual Sweerts/Amsterdam & Frankfurt
Ranunculus	ficaria	Lesser Celandine		Checklist of English native plant species	Dr. Chris Preston/England
Ranunculus	repens	Creeping Buttercup		Checklist of English native plant species	Dr. Chris Preston/England
Ranunculus	sardous	Hairy Buttercup		Checklist of English native plant species	Dr. Chris Preston/England

The double flowers look like this, and the list includes an "orange vermillion double form" under Ranunculus Asiaticus!


http://fireflyforest.net/firefly/2006/02/12/persian-buttercup-ranunculus/
- wavy, multiple layers! Similar, no?
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I finished the gold leaf.

I used Pearl Purl No. 1 for the rib, and Super Pearl Purl to outline it – I thought a contrast in the sizes in the Purl would be attractive.

Review of the Sampler

Melinda Sherbring was kind enough to review the sampler.

Here are her comments :

OK - detailed look at the sampler. You asked for a critique, so I will mention some things that are Opportunities For Improvement (or as our auditor today put it - OFI comments). It doesn't mean that what you have is wrong, it means that these comments are noting things that could be even better in future examples. You are free to consider these comments, and decide that I'm not "getting" your intent, or you can take them and follow the advice.

First - Wow the gold does gleam and sparkle! The colors are lovely, and the gold sets them off magnificently.

Clearly, this is a sampler of both stitches and motifs. I am assuming all the non-metallic fibers are silk, though some look a bit fuzzy, more like wool than silk. It may just be the lighting. I would expect in a sampler where you are showing off the stitches, that you would use metal and just one fiber, such as silk, to make it look more unified.

Because you want to play with as many different stitches as you can, you should be careful about varying too much else. If there are lots of stitches, and lots of fibers, and lots of colors, the results can look scattered, and without unity.

OFI- I realize that you are copying designs from all over, and are seeking to be true to the original colors. However, I think you'll find that most Elizabethan pieces did not use a wide variety of colors - 3-4 shades of {a blue, a red, a yellow, a yellow-based green, and a blue-based green}, plus black and white. Then each color and its shades appears throughout the piece. Your palette is richer and more varied than the typical Elizabethan embroidery. Be careful with your color variety, and be sure that each color is used throughout the design, not just in a single area.

Overall

The bones of the design layout are excellent -- you've chosen an appropriate Elizabethan design and modified it to your purposes.

You "get" the "horror vaccui" of Elizabethan design. That is, fill up the space, but not too much. The red dog-rose section, under the strawberries, looks just perfect to me -- full, but not too full, with everything against the ground and a little bit of space around -- but not too much.

Strawberry Area

The strawberries at the top are fun, and show a wonderful variety of styles.

OFI-- usually, Elizabethan motifs are set directly against the background, and not one in front of another, like the two on the right (unless it is a trick of the angle of the photo). I might have made them a little bit more distinct. Modernly, one "layers" motifs to show depth. They did put the occasional leaf over a stem, but mostly all motifs are set against the background. This area feels a little "too full" to me -- everything close together, even touching. I think they would have benefitted from a little more background showing through.

I like the little red lines around the upper right strawberry -- subtle indicator of the seeds. I also like the variety of different kinds of strawberries with their different kinds of seeds.

OFI - The underdrawing shows around the flowers. In the future, you might concentrate on stitching to the outside of the lines, instead of the inside. Also, the white flowers do not show up very well against the white background. As it is, you could put a narrow line of black or gray around the flowers, to sharpen them up and hide the lines.

I think you'll find that the sepals of a strawberry form a little green crown on the berry, like you have on nearly all of them, and rarely (if ever?) go down over the berry, as in the lower right pink berry.

Love the colors on the left leaf - white, blue, green, outlined in purl. The other one is nice, but that one is Just Stunning.

Trillium Area

I followed the blog as to why there is a white trillium there at all. It is a creative solution to the problem you encountered, and as such is fine. If you were starting from scratch, I know you would not have laid a flower under another like this.

The two padded goldwork leaves are beautiful. Nicely done, indeed.

Dog Rose Area

As I mentioned before, the use of motifs here is balanced and well-done.

The ladder stitch for the central stem is a little wobbly, but not bad. Have you considered doing a raised stem stitch in silk over the rungs? that was often done, and might make the stem stand out more. It is also fine as it is - just providing an option.

Big Dog Rose on Left

Lovely Long-and-Short shading! It looks like the thread tension is a little loose on top -- the photo shows it kinda "wrinkled" looking. Otherwise, the petals are nice and smooth, with excellent color transitions.

The colorful leaves balance the blue butterfly on the right side very nicely.

The little blue butterfly next to the dog rose feels just a hair big for the space available, but he doesn't touch, so he's fine.

Borages

The flowers are distinctive and identifiable. I might have used a bit more blue on the gold one, but he reads just fine.

The fly takes up just the right amount of room, and is cute as a bug (oh, he is a bug!)

Is the purple and beige flower a pansy? If so, the coloring is unusual. Usually the upper two petals are red (or blue), and the lower three are yellow, with red (or blue) tips.

Pearled Rose

This section is just elegant.

The basically gold rose on this side balances, colorwise, the basically gold borage across from it, even though the silk colors are different. Again, excellent color blending on this rose.

Also like the leaf - the colors are not as distinct as those of the Big Dog Rose and I like the blending section.

Cowslip

These usually appear in pairs - do you have a yellow one and a blue and gold one together? An unusual pairing.

Mystery flower on the right

Looks lovely - don't know what it is, but I've seen the design before. I don't think it is a daffodil. Dunno what it is.

My reply :

The cohesion of the sampler was beginning to concern me a bit. Your explanation re colours makes perfect sense.

I hope it will pull together re the motifs when the gold vines are all done (so the symmetry shows) and also the other end, which mirrors the dog rose and it's two buds, and the strawberries (with the great variety of motifs between the two ends)

I'm using DMC, with a bit of YLI (which is so crap, it might as well be DMC)

The tips about the layering of the strawberries - you are so right. (Nothing I can do now)

Shall fix the flower edges and take note re sepals for the other end.

Don't talk to me about the trillium. I hate it!

I shall do a raised stem stitch over the rungs - I'm not quite happy with it. Wobbly, like you said.

Big Dog Rose on the left - isn't completed. It's actually stumpwork - has 3 layers of detached petals plus picots (yeah, 17th C) to come. It isn't wrinkled - I think that's just a photo thing.

Cowslip - yeah, if I did it again, I wouldn't do 2 yellow and one blue. I was copying an extant piece for the blue one.

Thanks for the tip on the pansy. It was actually a copy, not my own colouring!
http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/bookbindings/FullImage.aspx?&ImageId=ImageId=42145&Copyright=BL
Major, Major thanks to Melinda

A Bokhara Couched Leaf and a Gold Leaf

You can just see my mid-line in my Bokhara couched leaf  where the couching stitches are placed.
There’s a great article on Bokhara, Roman and Romanian couching at http://www.heritageshoppe.com/heritage/stitches/roman.html
and more information and an instructional video at http://www.needlenthread.com/2008/01/bokhara-couching-embroidery-video.html
It’s very easy and quick to do – you just need to stay straight.
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“A leaf is worked in passing thread. Two strands of smooth passing thread is couched down in a sewing thread of the same colour over felt and string. The passing leaf is outlined with Pearl Purl.”
http://www.berlinembroidery.com/couchedthreads.htm#pearlpurl
I’ve done a tear drop shaped leaf (on the right bottom side of the photo). It has pearl purl  yet to be added as a vein and an outline.
I didn’t use string to create those ‘V” shapes shown in Tanya B’s image – the leaf is pretty small and will have enough going on with it’s texture just with the laid work and the Pearl Purl.
Yes, I used Lurex once more, as I don’t have any Passing Thread (I ordered some yesterday, but it’ll take awhile to get from Canada to Australia)
I felt I couldn’t possibly add any more colour to this section – so the solution was to go with gold. No more green – those are peapods to the right there – they’ll be green!
I was talking to Jeanne W of Just String about semi-detached work – thanks for your help, Jeanne!

The Blue Leaf and a Primrose

The blue leaf had to go. There was just too much ‘going on’ with the three different and ornate marigolds in the immediate area to introduce a totally different colour.
Thankyou to those who helped me come to this decision (I hate the physical process of frogging)
I still had a problem tho.

Right next to the leaf was the Sparkly Primrose, and it was outlined, and had it’s mid-line done in olive green.
Unless I did a leaf in olive green (and I decided that a green leaf was the only way to go) the greens were going to clash, right next to each other like that.
There were also other warms greens in the other marigolds.
The way to go was to change the outline of the Sparkly Primrose to a non-olive green..
While I was at it, I changed the bright orange spiderweb centre (which I always thought was a bit too bright anyway) to a light yellow and added a sequin right in the middle.
Also, it’s mid-line kind of veered off to the right a bit at the bottom.

The colours are a bit washed out in the photo – you can see by comparing the yellow of the petals in the Sparkly Primrose in the two photos.
The leaf looks a fair bit more teal in the photos than it really is. I’ve just started some bokhara couching in the long leaf in the bottom left corner – that’s actually dark forest green!
The leaf isn’t from any particular source – I’ve looked at a lot of leaves. This is of the type that is usually done in satin stitch. You can see a lot of them at the British Bookbinding site on the Embroidered Books.
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So this is the sampler so far:

You can see the big circle where that Pearl Rose that I recently said that I was excited about doing, and going to do as soon as I got all my supplies in .
Well, there are two of them, either side of the bird but I’m just doing the closest one to the rest of the work for now.
I’m avoiding those two dime sized circles to either side of the big circle. They will be in Spiral Trellis stitch, and I’m not very good at that stitch at the moment – I have to put some practise in. But I need to do them – they are rather being left behind.
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Note the two ovals, with flat bottoms either side of the bird’s feet.

These were originally drawn just as ‘swirls’ of indeterminate nature to be done in some line stitch, but I’ve re-drawn them to one each of these

which appear in a stumpwork piece in one of my books. I’ll track the source down when I’m working on them (not now, at 11.30pm)
I’m going to put a couple of semi-detached leaves above the bird, where there’s that blank space. It was never meant to be blank – I’d just run out of ideas at that stage and figured I’d come up with something eventually :-)
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It was only the other day that I discovered that you could buy coloured purl.
One flower I’d like to get into the sampler if I can is this one

http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=604811961&context=set-72157600455734204&size=l
- which is PinkLeaders/Lady Genevieve’s Flickr Set.
There is a wonderful piece at Boston-MFA. The completed section is composed entirely of coloured purl :

Embroidery
English, Late 17th–early 18th century
54 x 57 cm (21 1/4 x 22 7/16 in.)
Silk satin with spiral of polychrome wire (couched) embroidery
Classification: Textiles
Object is currently not on view
White satin, on which is drawn the design of a vase and flowers.
Part of the border has been worked with spirals of wire, wound with light and dark blue, dark red, violet, pink, light and dark green, yellow and brown silk.
On two sides is a green selvedge, into which is woven three threads of white wound with thin strips of tarnished metal.
Supposed to have been worked by some member of the Green family, and brought to America, in the late 17th or early 18th cent. Miss Sarah Green worked the leaf of green silk about 1778 in imitation of the old stitch.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Gift of Miss Susan A. Grout of Uxbridge, Mass., 1888
Accession number: 88.531
If you go to the MFA-Boston and look up it’s Accession Number and zoom in, you can see the all of the purl.

What do you think of the Blue?

The bird above will have the Indigo and Russet Red from slowCOLOUR and the little blossoms just above the curve will be in pinks. The indigo will help "balance" the blue - but I'm still not sure about it.
What say you?

The Second and the Third Primroses

from book The Embroidery at the Burrell Collection, Liz Burrell, page 106
Here is the naked primrose, just done with DMC :

And then,

(please excuse the sparkle)
Elizabethan twist added around the petals. Elizabethan twist isn’t normally used for outlining, I understand. It’s either one or two lines of passing thread (usually two) or Pearl Purl. But I had this tiny length of Elizabethan twist that a friend had given me as a sample, and it was a good opportunity to make use of it.
Ceylon stitch around the calyx. There is actually a small gap visible on the real thing – as I was coming back up the right side (doing Ceylon stitch upsidedown) I suddenly switched to doing it right side up.
oh – I didn’t do the red at the edge of the flower because I liked the smooth lines of the DMC yellow. It’s been awhile since I’ve just worked satin stitch.
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from the Victoria & Albert Museum's Textile Collection: Embroidery in Britain from 1200 to 1759 (King and Levey) Figure 36.
After a little consultation with Mary Corbet of NeedlenThread,

I did the primrose flower using Lurex. Normally, one would use passing thread, but I’ve run out.
I tried using some thick Jap, but it was impossible trying to get it to turn at the innermost tip of the petal, where the petal starts from pretty much nothing, then goes to less than 2 mm, then slowly gets bigger.
There is brick stitching in the petals, and a french knot in the middle.
With the calyx, I actually laid down two pieces of waxed string – you can see the bare gold where it sits over the string.
I thought about outlining the calyx, rather than having the wavy effect, but I think it looks alright.
I went to use Lurex with the calyx as well – but this time  - the calyx being bigger, the Lurex was too thin. You could see the string between the lines of Lurex, no matter how much I tweezed and finger-nailed to get them close together (the thickness of the silk thread I was couching with would have been a factor too).
So I used the thick Jap on it – and it worked fine. Just that bit of difference in size of the motif made all the difference in the gold metal thread that I could use.
Note that I have omitted all swear words that I actually used when doing this motif.
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Exciting news – when my next lot of supplies arrive from Tanya Berlin, I’ll be doing

I’m going to get ‘roll-in-the-grass-green’ from slowCOLOR for the silk. (I got their other threads the other day. What can I say at the moment, not having used it? It’s filament thread, great colours!)
Well, I’m pretty excited, anyway. I’ve ordered over 200 2-3 mm rice freshwater pearls and they are waiting for me at the post office.