Prospectors 1999 - Wildflowers

It's time to start my first design as part of the Prospector's challenge.

The first decision is what to design. I've always liked wildflowers, especially those from the the Rocky Mountains. When I was growing up we'd trek from Ohio to Colorado and Wyoming. For entertainment I was given a flower identification book. I would research in the car and then look for some of the exotic flowers when we arrived at our campsite. So, flowers would be my subject. And band samplers, which consist of bands of patterns, where popular so that was my format.

That's the easy part. So, I set out with graph paper to come up with the flowers for the bands. The Columbine that I stitched years ago was bigger than life. Each flower was maybe 20 x 20 or 30 x 30 squares. That's alot of detail to make up one flower.

I was making smaller flowers, some remembered from those early trips - harebell, fireweed and indian paintbrush. Other flowers where chosen for the colors or were flowers I discovered later on. With less detail each flower had to be simplified. But, if they are too simple the flower isn't recognizable. With a lot of work I finally had some bands.

But no matter how I arranged them they didn't look right. I added words. I added mountains. Things where looking better. I stitched my first attempt. It still didn't look right. Back to the drawing board.

I changed the scale of the flowers. Some where bigger and closer up. Others where off in the distance. More shuffling of graph paper rows and I finally had just the right balance of scale, color, flowers and words.

It was a lot of work but I was proud of my efforts. It was displayed at the Prosepector's exhibit in Colorado Springs in 1999. It was also exhibited at Margaret Parshall Gallery at the EGA Headquarters in Loiusville, KY from August 1 - October 31, 2000 as part of an exhibit of work from the Rocky Mountain Region.

Here's on of the first sketches that wasn't quite right:

And here's the final sketch:

Comments

It's about time - the big reveal

My bright quilt was finished in June but I wanted to wait until both were done before sharing the pictures. Quilting the blue quilt didn't take long but finishing the binding sure did. I did procrastinate a bit as it was too warm to have a huge quilt on my lap for most of the summer. After this, I'll probably do all the binding on my sewing machine (and stick to smaller quilts). Notice the cut-out corners? That was a challenge. I found instructions here and it looked easy enough but I wished I had practiced some. After a lot of finessing I finally got good miters but I could have done much better. The cut-out corners allow the quilt to hang nicely over the edges of the mattress and it's a perfect match for a full sized mattress. But, the top edge isn't even close to the pillows. I wonder how the quilt fit on the bed it was made for. Here, at last, is the original quilt that I was copying. I just noticed - all of the baskets are

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

Diverted by Dorset Buttons

I learned how to make Dorset Buttons yesterday at our monthly EGA meeting . These little buttons are so much fun to make! We only got three rings so that's how many I made. If I would have gotten more I'd probably be still making them. One nice thing is that they are very forgiving. I made countless mistakes on my first one and you can't tell. A quick google revealed lots of websites with historical information and tutorials on how to make them so I'm not even going to try to describe the process. Some people made their buttons with yarn, others used perle cotton. One of the examples had beads on it, so once I got home I had to find some beads to sew on. That's it for now. I'm going to be keeping my eye's open rings to use. I'm also going to have to go through my yarn stash. Using yarn gives a totally different result and I want to try some yarn ones too.

Erica's Stitches

Search This Blog