Nature’s Realm

Trish Burr’s threadpainting projects are firm favourites with our readers and stitchers. When we approached her to contribute a project for our special celebratory issue, she was in the throes of finalising her latest book The Kew Book of Nature Samplers – a series of designs based on the botanical art of natural history illustrator Rachel Peddar Smith.

‘I had a few botanical illustrations left over from the book that Rachel permitted me to use. I had been working on embroidery samplers of botanical studies for the last year and the inspirations were still fresh in my mind. I had no difficulty in coming up with a design.’

Trish has a special affinity for stitching samplers as it allows her to move on to each new aspect of the design without ever getting bored. Her special favourite is adding the little details like the fine veins on the butterfly wings and the delicate fluff on the bee’s body.

The designs are worked with a single strand of cotton and use staple threadpainting stitches such as encroaching satin stitch, long and short stitch, split and straight stitch, enhanced with French knots and fly stitch.

Although the designs look quite naive and use simple stitches, Trish’s secret to creating depth of colour and texture is in blending the 49 different shades of thread. Our detailed close-up photographs and instructions will help you achieve this in a practical and attainable way.

This botanical sampler depicts Primula, Japanese Quince, and Aquilegia buds as well as a white-tailed bumble bee and a monarch butterfly, and is stitched on fine white linen. The final design measures 8.5cm x 19.5cm wide (3 1/2” x 7 ½”) which makes this an achievable project and a great way to experiment with threadpainting techniques.

The added benefit of working with a sampler instead of a cohesive design is that all these elements can be used separately, say for instance to decorate a shirt collar, a handkerchief, or any other smaller project. As implied by the name, Nature’s Realm, this project suggests abundance, generosity, and blessings.

Step 1 – Purchase Project Instructions

Nature’s Realm by Trish Burr is a threadpainted panel of flowers and pollinators using an analogous colour palette.

Step 2 – Purchase Ready-To-Stitch Kit

The Inspirations Ready-To-Stitch kit for Nature’s Realm includes everything* you need to re-create this beautiful botanical study: Fabric with pre-printed design, embroidery threads and needle.

*Please Note: To cater for flexibility of purchase, instructions are not included with our kits. For step-by-step directions on how to create this project, please refer to the magazine/digital pattern.