Prada ----- Forever 21----- Bebe
I pieced the background fabrics that had been chosen to showcase the leaves. Then I machine quilted it.
Yarns were also couched to the striped panel to give the effect of a stand of saplings. The loose ends will get trimmed away after something gets couched along the horizontal seams above and below that section.
The leaf piece was added to the background and I machine quilted around the individual leaves. Now I'm in the process of add many more seed stitches that pass through all the layers and spill off the muslin panel onto the background.
To view the beginning of this piece as well as other work that incorporates pounded botanical materials click on the label at the end of this post.
Another study was needed to test out a mounting method with which I've been playing. This Monet-like "ortwork" piece is the result. It's one of the few that I've ended up keeping. It's hanging in my kitchen.
If you'd like to see more of this cozy corner go and the artwork in my kitchen go here.
The yellow flowers are Partridge Pea and the red-violet ones are Purple Poppy Mallow.
The white ones are a stalk of New Jersey Tea flowers while the others are Pale Purple Coneflowers.
And these flowers are Tall Coreopsis.
The corner pockets are made from two squares of fabric ... usually the same fabric as the backing for the quilt. Fold the opposite corners together to make a triangle. Press the fold.
I sew the the pockets to the corners at the top of the quilt with a zig-zag stitch before finishing the edges of the quilt with a binding or couched yarn.
Opps! I take that back. This is where they begin.
Bags of scrap fabrics, thread ravels, strips of wool cut for rug hooking, roving, and disassembled silk plants.
I cut the silk flowers apart and shape them to resemble particular flowers for my composition. The cone flowers get centers from balled up strips of wool. The yellow coreopsis will be getting some of those, too.
I love these bright pink poppies. The snippets from shaping petals become part of the piece as buds and flowers in the background. The leaves are also reshaped from my box of disassembled silk ones. I'm finding the backside of some are what is needed for a few of the plants.
"Flitty" flits about in the United Kingdom. Go here to read more about him. I like his fancy headdress and tail feathers.
There are wonderful "tweets", birds made of wool fabric with fancy fabric wings, made by Jackie in the United Kingdom as well.
Make a trip to her blog, Dog Daisy, to check out more of them. They are real characters!
All week I've been busy coming up with another variation of these.
Studies I had made a year ago last fall.
A few months ago I granted permission to McCalls magazine to feature a project based on my bird pattern. Their online magazine, "Quick Quilts" published it today..
These made by Kerry Joho look like sweet country cousins to my long-legged birds. Evidently kits for making them with RJR fabrics can be ordered through the magazine site. To make them from scratch, my pattern and instructions are free. Click on the links in my sidebar for access to download them to your computer for printing. To see many interpretations of my bird by me and my friends click on the Picasa "Birds" album that is also located in my sidebar.
Since posting the tutorial for how I machine couch yarns to fabric, I've devised a set-up for the yarn to feed "hands-free".
A container for the yarn is placed out of the way to the rear of my machine. I use the contraption made to feed thread wound on a cone for domestic machines to feed the yarn from the container.
Our Biosphere Reserve - 40"x 31"
and coloring in with oil stick pastels to enhance, correct, and highlight various sections of the quilt ...
bits and pieces found their way onto this surface ...
and got pinned down ...
this subtly striped upholstery fabric ...
to this richly textured fabric for my next project ...
