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More Wildflowers of America

Since I have framed the stitched Bleeding Heart from Curtis Boehringer's Wildflowers of America I decided to track down the other 3 wildflowers that had I stiched earlier.  I chose these flowers because they reminded me of the forests of Ohio where I grew up - Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Wake Robin and Bloodroot.

The Jack-in-the-Pulpit and Wake Robin where both finished with fabric frames.  This was a favorite finishing technique of mine for a long time.  On the back they are dated 1999 - that was a while ago. 

I remember the quilt store where I purchased the fabric, but not its name.  It's gone now but it was in an old Victorian house in Old Colorado City.  The turrets where lined with bolts of fabric and hey had a great selection of plaids.


I had never heard name Wake Robin before and it means nothing to me, but the flower is definitely a Trillium.  Back then, I dutifully followed the pattern.  Now I would have used the name Trillium or omitted the letters altogether.

I do miss seeing these two flowers in the spring.  Maybe sometime I'll be in the right place at the right time and see them again.  Until then, I'll enjoy the Colorado wildflowers.

I really liked these two designs and they way they turned out.  The Bloodroot was another story.  As you would expect from its name, the stem and roots of the Bloodroot  are red.  The roots where included in the design.  What looks good in nature and on paper didn't look as good on linen.

The Bloodroot and Bleeding Heart went into the drawer.

I pulled out the Bloodroot a while back while making a crazy quilt and chopped off the root and put it in a block.

After losing the roots the flower was much improved.  The flowers look so happy in the quilt block.  After all, there are many ways to frame a piece.

At the time, I couldn't chop up the Bleeding Heart so it went back into the drawer until 2010.  I'm going to continue making an effort to get those pieces out of the drawer.  I still have a few more living there.

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Comments

  1. KatieJuly 8, 2012 at 7:14 AM

    Erica - years ago I bought four of Chri Boehringer's wildflowers patterns -- some of which you've stitched so well. The DMC codes on the patterns are all in the 2000's (2986, 2906, 2644, etc) which are not in the DMC list for the US. How did you know what colors to use?

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  2. EricaJuly 8, 2012 at 12:06 PM

    Katie,

    The designs call for DMC Flower Thread, which is different from the stranded cotton we normally use and I have never seen in stores (although I have seen flower thread from other manufacturers).

    I assumed that the colors are consistent between the different styles of thread and that the "2" just indicates Flower Thread. I used the digits after the "2" to determine the color. So, for 2644 I used 644. 2986 becomes 986, etc.

    I found my charts and on one 2354 is circled and when I looked it up, 354 wasn't a current color. So, I guessed and picked a color that looked good with the rest of the colors.

    Hope that helps.


    Erica

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