I finally completed my Grandiflora embroidery project! This beautiful, three-dimensional design first appeared in Inspirations magazine (issue #99), often described as the world’s most exquisite embroidery publication. If you don’t know it yet, Inspirations is packed with projects that combine expert technique with breathtaking artistry, and Grandiflora is a perfect example of that.

I actually started working on Grandiflora back in 2021. At the time, I was fairly new to dimensional embroidery, and it turned out to be more of a challenge than I expected. This was my very first project involving 3D shapes, and I made plenty of mistakes along the way. The biggest one? I cut the wire tails much too short. That left me with hardly any material to secure the petals and leaves when mounting. By the time I realized what I’d done, I had already stitched all the shapes in the same way—wrongly.

Feeling frustrated, I tucked the unfinished project away in a drawer. The thought of unpicking and restitching everything drained my motivation, so there it stayed for a few years. But even when it was hidden from sight, Grandiflora never really left my mind. It’s such a striking piece, and I knew I wanted to see it completed one day.

Fast forward a few years: my embroidery skills and confidence have grown, thanks to tackling other projects in the meantime. With fresh eyes, I came up with a way to reattach new wire tails, cleverly hiding them so there was enough length for mounting. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked—and suddenly the project had life again. If you look very carefully you can still see just the tip of the correction hidden in between the white and the brown parts of the bud.

Once the shapes were finally ready, the next challenge was to find the right branch to mount everything on. I wanted something natural-looking, sturdy, and with a bit of character. Last week, I stumbled across exactly the branch I had imagined. To my surprise, the part I had dreaded most—drilling holes and attaching the wired shapes—turned out to be one of the easiest steps in the whole process.

And the result? I think it’s absolutely stunning. After all the mistakes, pauses, and problem-solving, seeing Grandiflora assembled and blooming in 3D feels like such an achievement. It’s a reminder that sometimes projects need to rest a little while, waiting for us to catch up with them.