"Grace": new embroidery pattern

Here's a little something I recently finished! The pattern and stitching guidance will be available later, after we are done with the Needle Painting stitch along.

Actually, this piece was inspired by the embroidery pattern contest where the topic was “Girl Power”. So, I sat and thought about what this Girl Power means to me. And one of the things that came to mind was the term “grace”.

As a person who studied English as a second language, I find the word “grace” a really unique one. It contains the soft concept of love, compassion, and kindness, but at the same time adds to this the feeling of dignity, pride, and elegance. It is amazing how one word can absorb and carry all of the aspects and I like how it reflects the nature of women, who also can be warm and merciful, but at the same time noble and dignified.

I think this word deserves to be stitched and placed on the wall as a constant reminder to preserve the Grace in our characters.

And because I didn't want to make the pattern consist of mere lettering, I embellished it with a leaves motif ;)

The design is not really difficult: there are few stitches that repeat throughout the pattern. Lettering is worked in satin stitch. The leaves outline, as well as stems, are stitched in stem stitch. I really like the golden shade of yellow for these elements - it reminds a fine golden chain that twisted in this lovely motif. The back of the leaves that peeks out here and there is worked in satin stitch as well. And on the inside the leaves are filled with fishbone stitching in three different shades of floss.

I started working on the Grace pattern back in the summer – you could see a couple of pictures of my progress on my Instagram (stitch_floral). But because of the mental block that I experienced earlier, I took a long break and finished it only a few days ago.

Look forward to the pattern (it will be free for download!), and also I am going to post the process of my stitching for those who need a more detailed guidance :)