Three-Dimensional Embroidered Flower

I created this delicate flower using heavy duty water soluble film, felt and free machine embroidery. For the vibrant flower I placed a thin layer of handmade felt over the film and then free machine embroidered a web of stitches over this. (It was important that the stitches overlapped one another frequently because this prevented the structure from falling apart when the backing fabric was dissolved.) After that I partially dissolved the water soluble film, leaving residue that stiffened the structure as it dried in a three-dimensional form. I added the leaves afterwards which were made deliberately fragile from a mixture of hand felted bamboo and wool roving.

Photograph showing yellow free machine embroidery that I added to accentuate
 the vibrant centre of this flower 

Detail of this embroidered structure from the outside, emphasising the
vibrant tones of colour in the petals

Detail of the highly fragile and lace-like structure of the flower petals