Freebies to come: Bargello and 4-way Flowers

Playing with Bargello again today, and this time with pastel colors for Spring - an egg shape. This one is 5 1/2" high x 4 1/4" wide, and will accomodate the 4-way design for the octagonal Christmas ornament from a few days ago, as well as this new pink flower.

This is a process you might enjoy playing with yourself, and see what you can achieve! The egg shape will be on Freebies, etc. in a few days when I get finished with the stitching and make the charts - but the smaller egg will do that's already available there - or you might just play with it on a circle.

The first thing I did, of course, was to draw the egg shape, which must be perfectly symmetrical to work for the 4-way bargello. I have used, instead of my usual black drawing pen, a blue Sharpie ultra fine permanent ink pen, so that the black dots and lines won't show through the stitching - especially as I plan to use white for the background. Next, the center square was marked, as well as the vertical and horizontal centers on the background - and the diagonals, which are necessary for corner turning on 4-way Bargello.

After stitching the pink flower (Rainbow Gallery Frosty Rays), the leaves were made with Kreinik metallic ribbon - 1/16" - on the diagonals. Then the fun part began - experimenting! I simply started at the top center, but this time turning the egg on its side, as I had to make sure the entire motif would fit from side to side. The top of the point was made, and then I just kind of made stair steps to create the flame stitch bargello, turning at the diagonal line for a mirror image. I had to rip out the first attempt, as it looked rather boring.
The last picture is as far as I got tonight, but I did get the inner border started with YLI Ribbon Floss in a pretty green that coordinates well with the Kreinik metallic and the Frosty Rays of the first green border.

I started this piece by just dumping out my stash of "frosty" and shiny threads in the colors I thought would best replicate those spun sugar eggs I remember from childhood - the ones with the little "dioramas" inside when you looked through a peep hole. I remember the white egg part looked rather sparkly, so I'll use probaby perle cotton and a few clear beads for the background around the pink flower instead of bargello. The 4-way Bargello framework will represent the "icing."

Do try this yourself - you will be surprised what you can do just playing around with needle and thread on canvas! I did put the pink flower chart on Freebies, Etc. for your use - will do the whole thing later.