#7 Circular stitching - radial symmetry

The 7th challenge in this year long stitching project made for interesting reading. Plants have radial symmetry & the challenge was to show this in stitching. 

Number 6 with the previous ones is here  

All of them have been interesting,  mostly out of my comfort zone but that is how we learn & grow. 

The suggestion was to use a crochet doily as the base circle but none of mine were even vaguely close to the circular size of 4 inches in diameter on a 6x6 inch square.  I have not really had to draw such a complex shape & so it needed thought - that is one of my strengths - improvising. 

Some early starters on the facebook group drew mandala's & embroidered those. Again, not an easy shape to draw on to fabric & I have not done mandalas before.

I found a mandala shape online, copied it to a Word document in 2 sizes, hoping one would be close to the right diameter & printed them off. 

How to trace it to the fabric?  I spied a pack of A4 freezer paper I had bought to experiment with but had not used so I scanned the sheet with the mandala's & printed it to the freezer paper sheet. It worked - phew. 

The instructions say iron the glue side to your fabric so that is what I did  & it stuck. A massive sigh of relief.

I have my embroidery threads sorted in containers by colours so I selected the pinks / purples / lilacs / greens & took them to the conservatory where the light is so good. 

It seemed right to select 3 colours for the flower shape & each colour was stitched, then the second & third. I used greens in the centre & around the inner circle shape, then a different green in  running stitch to give a lightness to the outer edge.  

The little circles were going to be French knots but they were lost in the shape so out they came & satin stitch worked just fine. 

It was finished in just a few hours - a relief as it was a shape I did not know how to approach first of all. 

I am especially pleased that the back is almost as neat as the front & that is a big deal for me as I am not a neat embroiderer. My Mother's used to be almost the same on both sides & I was always in  awe of her skills. Mine is improving & that is good. 

I still have to stitch it to the back panel, insert the stiffener & then finish up the fourth side. I need to machine embroider the names of the last few months for the back of those - white thread on black to match the others. 

Do you take on random challenges that are out of your comfort zone? I was not sure I would manage to do this year long one each month but having a month to do each one has made it manageable & more importantly, it has challenged me & that is always a good thing. 

Thank you for stopping by, your company is always much appreciated.

Dee