In deciding on another design to enhance, it just had to be Celtic Dreams, which was my very first Celtic collection. Now this is the biggest design in the collection and it was created for a bridal bodice. Now I wanted to update it and make it extra special so what better than adding in elements of the Rachel Kathryn Bridal collection which I am currently working on.

I decided to embroider this out in a pale peach, Sulky Rayon 1801, Flesh, which I did many years ago for a bridal bodice. I have hooped cream silk dupion in my 260 mm x 200 mm hoop using Stitch and tear stabiliser and a Schmetz top stitching needle 80/12.

Here you can see the underlay which gives the Celtic embroidery a raised appearance.

The top of the design is the widest part and has a gentle curve for a neckline.

Here the Celtic work is complete. Now for the interesting part of adding pretty elements from the Rachel Kathryn Bridal collection. I have kept the chosen colours of these designs as they blend well with the peach colour.

With careful positioning the tiny flowers and sprigs can be added in appropriate places.

You can see the white underlay in this photo, which supports the small blossoms in these designs. This makes all the designs in the Rachel Kathryn collection suitable for sheer fabrics.

The sprays of fern like leaves sit perfectly over the edge of Celtic knot work.

When I added these elements in my embroidery software, I positioned everything on one side, then selected them and pasted them on the other side mirror imaging them. Before saving your design zoom in and check that all the leaves and sprigs are under the flowers. Then save it under a new name so they original embroidery file is not lost. Don’t forget to colour sort your design to avoid unnecessary thread changes. You may prefer to not make the design symmetrical

If you are using small elements to enhance your Celtic embroidery you can fill in as many gaps as required. However I would not advise making it too busy.

Obviously you could eliminate the centres of the flowers and add hot fix pearls or crystals. If the centres are not dense enough, in this or any other design, stitch them over again in the same colour.

This is the embroidery complete. I was delighted with it. It really is quite easy to create something unique like this. You can purchase this design in my new Tutorial 11: Taking Celtic embroidery to a new level, which will be released this week.

Remember the Celtic Event lasts until Monday 23rd March, 2020. All Celtic embroidery has been reduced by 50%.

Happy embroidering from Hazel