Stitch Flowers: Basque Stitch

Stitch flowers using the Basque Stitch.

The bright and wild Zinnia flowers around my house have inspired me to do this project. The rain drenched flowers droop their bright petals down, opening the yellow center to the cloudy skies. The Basque Stitch was a perfect fit to create the bright flaming orange petals. I have used 6 strands of embroidery floss for a thicker look. If you want to do a full flower, just go ahead. They will look just as beautiful!

Fig 1: Get your fabric, hoop, and threads ready. To stitch the flowers, mark the outline with semi circles as shown. The petals will fall in this space.	Fig 2: Start stitching the Basque Stitch with the top line and the bottom line as the two stitch lines.
Fig 3: When you finish with a flower, anchor it down the last stitch to finish it.	Fig 4: If your thread finishes halfway, anchor down the petal as shown and knot the thread behind the fabric.
Fig 5: Then, begin the fresh stitch from the top, as shown.	Fig 6: I added the Pistil Stitch to fill in the center.
Fig 7: The flowers are finished and look like this.	Fig 8: The stems are done in Back Stitch, and the leaves are done in Whipped Back Stitch.