Skip to main content

Prospector's 2009 - Les Fleurs des Bois





A whole 10 years had passed since my original Prospector's and I wanted to do another flower sampler to mark the anniversary.  The theme of Prosepector's this year was "Trees" and the seminar was in Boise and called "Les Bois Adventure".  I wanted to stitch flowers and I wanted to follow the theme.  So, to make the design work, I came up with the title "Les Fleurs des Bois" - the flowers of the woods.  That settled, I needed to pick the flowers to include so I pulled out all my flower identification books and started doodling and sketching.  I had more flowers than I could use.  The flowers I ended up using are all bright and colorful:

  • Shooting Star - This is a flower I saw first in flower books as a child.  It wasn't until I traveled to the right part of Colorado that I saw them.  Shooting Star has always been one of my favorites.  Unfortunately, it doesn't grow on the plains and foothills where I live.  It is in the higher elevations near mounain streams so I haven't seen one in the wild in years.
  • Glacier Lily - I saw this one in the book and it resembles the Trout Lily I remember from the woods of Ohio and Pennsylvania.  Apparently it grows in the Rocky Mountains, too.  But I've never seen it in this area of the country.
  • Lupine - this is the same design as the fireweed I did 10 years ago.  The color and leaves have changed and it's now a lupine.  This was added to commemorate a lupine that was in the center of a rotary in a neighborhood I drive through often.  Every spring I would look to the center and watch it bloom.  A few years ago they redid the landscaping and it's now filled with petunias.  I miss that lupine.
  • Rocky Mountain Goldenpea - this is a flower I hadn't seen until I moved here.  It grows on the hillside beside the house and is one of the first flowers to bloom every spring.  It's bright and cheery.
  • Fringed Gentian - this is another flower I don't see very often but I remember it from my youth.  It was hard to translate to cross stitch.  It is not as realistic as the other flowers but it goes well with the others.
In order to keep the stitching simple my goal was to only use basic DMC floss.  I bent my rules once for the Glacier Lily.  It has beautiful mottled leaves and I thought that the best was to simulate this was to use an overdyed thread.  For the Fringed Gentian, I alternated 3 shades of DMC purple to simulate and overdyed floss.

It turns out my fabric was 32 count, not 28 count as I thought.  That means that there are 32 threads per inch, or 18 stitches.  It didn't fit into my 5 x 7 frame so I improvised a border and sent the design off to the exhibit.

While it was gone I started on designs for Patternsonline.  So, I stitched another version on a different background.  This time I made sure the fabric was 28 count so no border was needed.  This pattern is for sale on http://www.patternsonline.com/.





A strange thing has happened.  This time after I finished designing I didn't want to stop.  Work has been getting more stressful and less creative.  Stitching other peoples designs was less rewarding than it had been done before.  So, I kept designing flowers and putting them into samplers.  More on that next time.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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
Post a Comment
Read more

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
2 comments
Read more

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.
4 comments
Read more