Blue Water-Lily Silk Bookmark Embroidery Kit - Silk Shading on Organza

Dispatched from London within three working days. A beginner-to-medium silk embroidery kit for a 12 × 4 cm organza bookmark, made under licence from the British Library.

Stitch a blue water lily in fine silk. This kit is for the Blue Water-Lily bookmark, made under licence from the British Library. Its design is The Blue Egyptian Water-Lily, painted by Peter Henderson for Robert John Thornton’s The Temple of Flora. The flower is printed on sheer organza as your stitching guide, and you embroider over it by hand.

The kit teaches one Su-embroidery stitch, the void-and-solid stitch (xū shí zhēn), which grew out of long-and-short stitch. The stitches sit close at the petal tips and open out towards the base, so the blue fades the way it does in the original plate.

What’s in the kit

• The organza bookmark blank, with the water lily printed on it
• Silk threads in the blues, greens and yellow of the water lily, unsplit: two strands twisted together, and you stitch with one
• An embroidery needle
• A mini step-by-step guide
• A tassel to finish the bookmark

You will also need small sharp scissors, good daylight and time.

Details

• Finished size: 12 × 4 cm
• Level: beginner to medium
• Designed in London and dispatched from London within three working days

Prefer to learn it in person? Our three-hour Blue Water-Lily class runs on Saturday 23 January 2027 in Ealing: see the workshop.

The studio photographs show the kit as it arrives: the water lily on the organza is printed as your guide, and you stitch it in silk. One image is a page from the step-by-step guide, showing the stitching in progress and a finished bookmark.

Made by Borderless Atelier Ltd as provided under licence from the collection of the British Library. Image: The Blue Egyptian Water-Lily, from The Temple of Flora, London 1804–1807, British Library.