Posy of Flowers by Ana Mallah

Have you ever noticed that people who are naturally creative are often gifted across multiple forms of artistic expression?

From cooking to gardening, to painting and stitching some people are just good at everything and it seems that whatever they put their hand to, prolific skill ensues!

This can even manifest itself in seemingly innocuous ways, such as floral arrangements. Have you ever received a posy of flowers beautifully gift wrapped and tied in a neat bow, only to find that when you transfer them to a vase everything somehow splays out this way and that, and suddenly your flowers look anything but glamorous?

There is real skill in the art of arranging flowers and for some of us it’s not a natural talent that we have been blessed with.

Today we’re embarking on a most fabulous journey where, over the coming weeks we’re going to discover how to master floral arrangements using your needle and thread.

Now that doesn’t mean we’re going to learn how to stitch together your real flowers so they all stay nice and upright in your vase… although that’s probably an option for the floral illiterate among us.

What it does mean is that we’re going to be exploring projects from the new book In Bloom all of which have been created by the extraordinarily talented designer Ana Mallah.

The first project we’re starting with is Posy of Flowers.

Lustrous silk ribbons, sparkling glass beads, wool felt and stranded cotton threads are used to create this wonderfully life-like posy.

Putting together a posy that looks good requires a certain skill that takes into consideration textures, colours, flower size, leaf structures and stem heights to ensure that the finished ensemble is balanced and achieves a certain wow factor.

In Posy of Flowers Ana has put together a magnificent collection of florals that consist of the warm, sunset-hues of African daisies, wine and dusky pink of the kalanchoe, white and palest blush of the dogwood bracts, and rounding it out with viburnum flowers.

Ana guides you through the process of making each element using needle and thread including all the creative decisions to select the perfect number of flowers to end up with the perfect posy.

That said, this project is also available as a ‘choose your own adventure’.

Once you’ve learned how to make all four individual flowers, you might decide to take creative control and decide how many to include in your own custom posy. You might even make several smaller posies and mix and match different combinations to create your own series of arrangements. The options are endless.

These flowers are stunning, yet perhaps what is most remarkable is that Ana has created them in such a way that they don’t hide the fact they are embroidered. Instead, they celebrate their authentic hand-stitched qualities while at the same time are incredibly lifelike.

There is no doubt that wherever you chose to place your Posy of Flowers it’s going to look fabulous. It’s just one of those projects that radiates joy and the fact we get to create it using our needle and thread doubles the thrill factor.

Ready-to-Stitch kits for Posy of Flowers are now available and just a reminder that you’ll need a copy of the book for comprehensive step-by-step instructions.