fireflies is inspired by the quiet magic of summer nights, and features glowing fireflies and blooming wildflowers. i'm super excited to get this design stitched up, one step at a time.

to start, i'm focusing on the leaves and vines:

for the leafy vine, i used satin for the leaves and split stitch for the vines. and for the flower leaves, i am using fishbone stitch. [2 strands for all of this]
a few of the leaves have petals that overlap, so i've just worked around those as best i can.

next, flowers! for the yellow flowers, i'm using satin stitch [2 strands]. i have oriented the stitches lengthwise for the petals:

for the white flowers, i'm using satin [2 strands] again, but this time, i'm orienting the petal stitches widthwise. (this way, all the flower petals won't look the same.) the centers are filled with colonial knots [2 strands] using the light yellow floss.

i want these large dark pink flowers to have a different texture from the other two, so i'm going to fill the petals using split stitch:

first, i'm stitching the printed lines, and then i'm filling in between the lines using more rows of split stitch.

in the centers of these big pink flowers, i'm filling with lots of colonial knots [2 strands] and then using a single strand of the same bright teal to add some straight stitches around the center. just small radial stitches, to give the base of the petals some dimension.

i also made the small light pink flowers with colonial knots and straight stitches [2 strands].

and for these sweet fireflies, satin, straight, and back stitches [2 strands].

once the fireflies are done, there are just a few more finishing touches to do: running stitch [1 strand] for the dotted line, and back stitch [2 strands] for the jar.

and now i think it's done! hope you like this one as much as i do.