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.