A Little Handwork

Before I left for Florida, I searched among my many UFOs (UnFinished Objects) for a project needing handwork to keep me busy.  I came across a notebook with a number of flower/nature studies that I began in an online workshop with Pamela Allen in 2010.

I remembered that these were in my project bag a few days ago, but alas, I had not packed a needle.  A trip to Target produced a tapestry needle that will do, so I have been doing some stitching.

This one is supposed to be morning glories climbing on fence posts.  I have stitched down all but the leaves and flower at the bottom center and right, using embroidery floss.

I think I must have made those fence posts when I first got my needle-felting machine.  I detect some wool roving and strips of fabric felted onto a cotton base.  The wool makes it look a little hairy, I now think!

When it is all stitched down, I will machine-quilt the piece, adding more wood grain and some veins in the leaves.  Looks like it could use some wire between the fence posts, as well.

Here are the other pieces I brought from this series.  They all were missing bits here and there.  I compared them to the photos in the original post and tried to fix them up.  I may have to add some more fabric when I get home to Raleigh.

Poppies

 Perhaps a hydrangea?  It is missing about a hundred of those x-shaped petals!

Some tall blue flowers on stems.  Looks like I need a bigger piece of background fabric!

 I think this one is an abstract  version of aspen trees.  The purpose of the exercise was to observe shapes in nature, and not always make the stereotypical daisy shaped flower or symmetrical pointed leaf.

A tree...Not sure what's going on here, except maybe I was trying to utilize the botanical patterns on some commercial fabrics to make the leaves and branches.

I sat outside on Jeff and Anna's deck to work on my stitching today.  While I was stitching, there were three iguanas criss-crossing the lake.  I think the big brown one is getting amorous, and the two smaller green ones are trying to swim away from him.  Here is one of the green ones climbing out of the lake onto the grass.

We did visit a fabulous place on the way home this morning.  It is right here in Fort Myers, and my sister-in-law told us about it yesterday.

Norman Love's Chocolate Salon...oh, my goodness, Heaven on Earth!

The pastries and candies look like jewels or pieces of art.

Here is a chocolate cake with several tiers.

 We each had a pastry and coffee, and then we brought home a box of assorted truffles for our hosts, a dark chocolate bar for a fellow patient we have befriended at the Dattoli Center, and a sugar-free chocolate bar for us.  I predict more trips to visit Norman Love before we leave!

Nature Studies

Yesterday, I devoted the whole day to my "homework" for Pamela Allen's online art quilt workshop, "About Style." This week's lesson is about creating flowers, leaves, and trees that are not generic daisies, elliptical leaves, or "lollipop trees." So much good advice about composition and creativity goes into these lessons! And the classwork posted by the students in the class is turning out fabulous!

The first part of our assignment was to find artwork or photographs that featured different types of flora and fauna, and then to create six small studies in fabric on white backgrounds. All of mine are 7" x 9".

Morning glories growing on fence post- The rough fence post fabric was created on my needle-felting machine with hand-painted cotton fabric, hand-dyed fabric, commercial fabric, and wool roving. The morning glories are fussy-cut from a patchwork commercial print.

The heart-shaped leaves are from a hand-dyed fabric purchased on E-bay. The inspiration was a photo on a blank greeting card.

I am sure you are all familiar with the O'Keeffe poppy paintings. I tried creating the folds of the flowers from hand-dyed and commercial fabrics.

This one is inspired by a scrap of gift-wrap paper. The orange-pink fabric for the blossoms is from a commercial fabric.

These bachelor buttons, or cornflowers, are cut from the same commercial print fabric as the above flower, along with some deeper blue fabrics.

I tried making some wavy-trunk trees with airy golden foliage. The trunks are from a piece of black twill that I discharge-dyed years ago. It works well for tree trunks, I think. The fiery gold and orange is a commercial print.

I have never felt very successful at making branching trees, so I used an example of Pamela's to practice.

Then I used bits of a funky fabric to make some foliage.

Okay, not a daisy or lollipop in the collection!

Next assignment is to create a garden quilt composition. Pamela put three of mine together to show how the individual elements can be combined for a garden effect. It is pictured at the opening of this post.

We are supposed to make new ones, not use the studies, for this assignment. I like some of my studies so much that I will probably quilt them. This is so much fun!