Garden Quilt Departure

Here is an update on one of my Pamela Allen online class projects. The subject of Lesson 2 in About Style was gardens and foliage. We were to try to create new shapes, imaginative flowers, a variety of foliage, as in the flower/tree sketches I posted here.

Then, the assignment was to create a garden composition. I put some flowers together, and tried to think of a focus for the piece. It hit me that I would like to set my "garden" in the landscape of our mountain cabin. Then, I thought I could put my "late" dog, Maggy, somewhere in the garden as a bit of memorial.

So, I started out with these exuberant flowers and rhododendrons on the right, a blackberry bush, and Maggy sitting at the base of a pine tree and looking at the raccoon she had "treed." No, don't squint, the raccoon was not in this scene yet.

Pamela loved the right side of the composition, but thought Maggy looked like a rodent, and the muted color of the tree and the background was too confusing.

By then I really wanted to make this a story quilt featuring Maggy and the raccoon, so I decided to go much more vertical.


I changed the boring pine trunk to a gnarly, twisted mountain tree, put in a raccoon with personality and lots more colors of foliage in the tree. This one got the nod from Pamela, and I have started stitching down all these pieces with hand embroidery.

Not exactly what I would call a garden quilt, but Pamela says that was just a starting idea that we could take in any direction we chose.