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Start by cutting two pieces of 7mm silk ribbon, one piece for the
bottom two leaves and one piece for the top three leaves.
For smaller pansies or violas, I cut them at around 3" and 5". |
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For most pansies, I cut them at around 4" and 6". It is not
an exact science and there is no mathematical formula like there is with
wired ribbon pansies. |
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Fold the shorter piece of ribbon into a V shape and pin it at the
bottom. Fold the longer piece of ribbon into three sides of a
square and pin at the two corners. |
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Take a piece of thread and make a running stitch along the bottom of
each piece of ribbon. You do not need to take great care to keep
the stitches even, but make enough stitches that the ribbon will gather
well on one side when you pull it tight. |
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I prefer to use black silk thread for the running stitches, so that
I can use it to tack down the ribbon and it will look like radius marks
on the pansy. In this example I used one strand of Eterna
Mini-Twist, a 6-stranded silk thread with a slight twist. |
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Pull the thread from the running stitches tight in order to gather
the bottom two petals and tack them into place. Use long stab
stitches to secure each petal and to mimic the radiating eye of the
pansy. I usually make two to three rays per petal. |
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Pull the thread from the running stitches tight in order to gather
the top three petals and tack them into place as above.
Leave a slight gap or hole in the middle, so that you can fill the eye
with knots. |
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In this example, I used Size 3 black perle cotton. formed a
small triangle out of three French knots, then placed a double-wrapped
French knot in the very center. Often I use rayon cord to make a
large decorative Chinese knot for the center. |
