The Solana Leopard Print: How a Bold Print Gets Made Stitch by Stitch

March 17, 2026|Louise Mclennan

There's a moment when an embroidered design stops being abstract marks on fabric and starts being itself. With the Solana Leopard Print, that moment happens stitch by stitch.

What it looks like in the hoop

Before the Leopard Print becomes jewellery, it lives in an embroidery hoop as a small half-moon of white fabric, not much bigger than a coin. The design is worked in two colours: cobalt blue and bright orange.

The cobalt marks go in first. Each one is a dense oval of satin stitch, worked closely together so the stitches sit parallel and flat. Satin stitch has a particular quality, a slight sheen, a texture you can see from across the room. In cobalt, it reads almost like ink.

Then comes the orange. Bright, warm, filling the spaces between the cobalt marks. The two colours don't blend. They sit next to each other, distinct, which is exactly what makes the palette work. Cobalt and orange are complementary colours: opposites on the wheel, and the reason they create that kind of tension when you put them together.

From hoop to finished piece

Once the embroidery is complete, the fabric is cut and set into a small gold half-moon frame; a shape that gives the design a clean, contained presentation without competing with it. The earrings hang from a slim gold bar stud at around 5cm total length. The necklace pendant sits on a fine gold satellite chain at 50cm.

Working in small batches means all the pieces for a run go into the hoop at once. It's easier to keep the tension consistent and compare the marks as the work progresses. Even so, each piece is stitched individually. There's no shortcut in satin stitch.

The finished piece

The Solana Leopard Print reads differently depending on how close you are to it. From a distance, it looks almost printed. Bold, graphic, confident. Up close, you can see every stitch decision: where the cobalt transitions to orange, the slight variation in mark size, the texture that only satin stitch produces.

That's what makes it wearable art rather than just jewellery. It has a quality that reveals itself the more you look at it.

The Solana Leopard Print is available now as earrings, a pendant necklace, or a matching set at The Modern Stitch Studio. Each piece is hand-embroidered in small batches.