Pretty flowers in the grey of winter!

The Trevelyon's Pocket project is coming along nicely!Berlin is one of the greyest places in winter. We often have 6 out of 7 days a week when the sun doesn't shine - at all. It can be difficult. The good news is that it's not long now until we return to Iowa where, according to the weather forecast, they are having sunny or partially sunny days every day this week.This winter, to combat the grey days, I've been busy creating beautiful, coloured flowers using silk thread on silk fabric, bringing a bit of cheer into my workroom!The colour scheme I decided on is working beautifully. As you can see in the photo above there is a nice mix of colours. I've especially enjoyed working the leaves as I'm doing different kinds of shading, sometimes using two colours, sometimes three and even four on the leaf in the top right corner. It's interesting to study pocketbooks of the period in online museum collections, see what the embroiderers did in the past and apply those ideas to my own work.I've also learned that often adding a bit of a third colour brings a tiny blossom to life. As I worked on other flowers in the piece, the flower in the photo above began to look a bit sad in comparison. It hadn't much life. On a whim, I decided to add a tiny bit of a third shade of red/pink and look at the difference! Like an herb or a spice - a tiny bit of an additional colour is all it takes to liven things up!By far my favourite and the most time consuming and challenging is the gilly flower or carnation, below. I used four colours in total. The petals are shaded alternately in reverse order, as you can see. Some move from dark to light and others from light to dark. This is something I saw on one of the pockets I researched in an online museum.Below is the Trevelyon's Pocket  "garden" as far as I've finished. The vines - I think - will be gold passing thread but maybe with a special accent of green, the idea coming  from a pocket I saw in a museum collection. Now that I look at the photo, I'm not too happy with the center of the tiny dark blue flower - it's wonky! Out it comes - I hate wonky!I hope all of you are having sunny days filled with beautiful embroidery this winter! Remember, if you're interested in taking this project as a class, be sure to ask me to be put on the list to be notified about upcoming courses on WITH THREADED NEEDLE. Click here.