I love having a muslin backing cloth, as it lets threads bury themselves, and gives you a place to work a couple of small stitches before starting to stitch - no knots, I hate knots!
Stitching it all down
The leafy light green block is reverse applique, the green fabric mounted on the back, with tacking stitches outlining the negative space that needs to be cut through from the front. I cut the red silt form the front, then blanket stitched it down. I chose the motif carefully to make sure I could align warp and weft of both fabrics and still have the stem at a sensible angle to extend downwards.
I used very sparse, stretched fly stitch to attach the orange "sunflower" stem; breaking this at the centre with a little sliver of blue organza to echo the sky above. I chose a stitch that echos the running stitch used in the sky, as well as the triad of the fly stitch.
For the grass at the bottom I wanted to make sure the stitches helped in holding down this very loosely woven fabric. I used a toning soft green silk, to blend into the sheen of the fibre, rather than fighting with it. Then I couched on some of the loose threads from the sunflower fabric to the left, using the same green as is in the sky, shiny and vivid.
So here we are! I think it needs to be backed by something dark, but for now, it's just a sampler.
Now to the functional applique ....
