Stumpwork Iris

Stitcher: Dorothy Bull

Designer: Michele Roberts

One of my favorite flowers is the German Iris, especially the purple Iris.  When I first saw the picture of Michele Roberts Stumpwork Iris I knew that I had to stitch it.  Stitching this piece was something that I just had to do, not something that I wanted to do.
Michele was staying at my home while she was teaching the pilot for the Stumpwork Iris and that evening I was working on a corner of the piece when Michele asked me if I was going to enter it into the Seminar Exhibition.  My reply was what do I need to do to enter? Michelle told me what needed to be done.  That comment by Michele gave me the impetus to finish, frame and enter the National Seminar Exhibition. 
Sometime during that weekend I commented that there should be a bud on the flower because all Iris have buds. Michele more or less challenged me to add the bud, so I did.
The lace on the petals came about purely by accident.  I started by doing the button hole stitch in both directions and had done 4 or 5 rows when it came to me that I was doing it wrong.  Then I thought “I don’t care because I like the look of this pattern over what Michele had designed”, so I continued doing all of the petals in the buttonhole stitch.  When I started putting the flower together I realized that with the laciness of the petals that I needed to place another petal in the standard of the Iris to give the flower a realistic look.
When I made the bud all I did was use the leaf pattern and make one leaf in the Gloriana overdyed silk, Periwinkle 029 and one in the Gloriana overdyed silk, Foliage Green 096.  Then wrap the Periwinkle leaf around the tip of one of my laying tools and when it was shaped to my satisfaction I then wrapped the Foliage Green leaf around the bottom half of the Periwinkle leaf to make the bud, then padded and wrapped the stem with green floss, and finally attached the bud to the stem.
I worked on this piece everyday for a month; for me it was one of those pieces that simply HAD to be finished and it was a joy to work.

The Stumpwork Iris was exhibited at the Woodlawn Needlework Exhibition during March 2006 and won a Second place in the Stumpwork Division.

Everyone who has seen this piece has fallen in love with it. Without the Beautiful design by Michele Roberts none of this could ever have happened.

Excerpt of Conversation between Tony Minieri and Judy Souliotis about this piece
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Last updated Monday, October 9th, 2006