SAL: lily centre

Ok, a little botany lesson here, courtesy of my botanical artist sister and co-author Prue. I have no idea what the bits in the centre of the lily are called (I think I’ve been calling them sepals…), but fortunately she does!
So, the centre bit that sticks up is the style, and the knobby bit at the top of it is the stigma. The six sticky up bits around that are stamens, and the long orange bits with the pollen on them are the anthers.

These are the next bits that we’re going to work on our Mountmellick lily.
First, work the style in stem stitch, from the bottom to the top, finishing in the middle of the stigma outline.
Then work the stigma as three bullions. You’ll want to change to the darner needle for this, as its eye is a little smaller than the chenille needle’s eye. First, work the centre bullion, going from the top of the stem stitch, up to the top of the stigma outline. Then work two bullions across at the base, overlapping the first bullion and the stem top.

For these bullions, I have chosen to wrap anticlockwise, as with the thread being S twist, it gives more pronounced wraps and makes for a fatter bullion.
The stamens are worked as stem stitch, and the anthers are a single bullion at the top of each stamen.
The completed large lily flower – well, for now. We’ll come back to it later to work some stitching in the petals.