Tulip life embroidery by Susan Hol

About "Tulip life embroidery"

by Susan Hol

About the artwork

In this work, the embroidered tulips have sturdy roots anchored deep in the earth's soil. Of course, this does not match reality. It is my poetic license. Perhaps I did it because tulips occupy a big place in my life (see, for example, my other works).
During my training as a modinette (long ago), I learnt pattern drawing and sewing clothes, as well as embroidery with various embroidery stitches. Embroidery has long been in the corner of triteness. Now all the textile forms that women (and often men) have traditionally practised are back from never really being completely gone.
Stitch by stitch I embroidered the tulips, then I started finishing the border: in festoon stitch in green embroidery thread, and using a fine crochet hook and embroidery thread around the embroidered tulips tarantula crochet in many colours. The final round of crochet was burgundy. After that, extra strength was needed to keep the crochet work nicely in place. I found patches of sky blue viscose in my stash, very nice, but it frays terribly. So firm hemming in zigzag stitch on the sewing machine was necessary.
Then I filled the sky blue space stitch by stitch and the tulips got long colourful roots at the bottom of their stems. Finally, I decided to also fill the space between the tulips with all kinds of stitches in green embroidery thread.
Then I wanted to extend the border with a kind of loose stitch and attached the whole embroidery on black tulle. This was followed by another layer underneath: the pink floral fabric.