Embroidered Flower Gardens: Daisies

Continuing on with some examples of flowers in hand embroidery, here are a few simple daisy-like flowers with French knot centers.

These daisy petals are worked in two strands of cotton using lazy daisy (or detached chain) stitch. In the middle of the petals formed by the stitch, I worked a long straight stitch in different colors of yellow, using one strand of over-dyed cotton. The French knots are worked in two strands of yellow.

And here you have some more daisies using the same stitches, without the straight stitch in the center. A variety of over-dyed silks and cottons are used in this part of the garden. Notice that the greenery is also worked in daisy stitch.

The daisy stitch is a simple way to make nice looking flowers for embellishment. Don’t limit yourself to five or six petals, either – you can pack more around a center, make your petals long, and work some short ones over them for depth. Experiment and see what happens!

Have fun with it!