From Darkness Comes Beauty

 

 

 

We are still anxiously waiting for baby girl to make her presence in this world.  My poor daughter-in-law looks absolutely miserable, so swollen.  I think I only have 131/2 days left of school, not that I am counting the days.

 

 

 

For this project, I took the time to plan out the stitching for the background.  I wanted the background to be as much a part of the overall piece and not just a second thought.

Again, everything just seemed to fall into place.  The stitching seems to be complimenting the flower.

Here is another close up.

 

Another view

Here is the pattern I did on the border.

Here is the finished product. I have titled it, "From Darkness Comes Beauty".  It turned out much better than I expected.

 

 

Here are some more pictures of our trip to the Rockies.

 

 

 

This is a view of Grand Lake on the west side of the Rockies.

 

 

Another view of the Rockies, from the west side.

It is Coming all Together

 

Happy Mother's Day!  We just finished having a fabulous brunch with friends and family.  It was a pleasure to prepare and serve the food this morning.  I find staying at home is much nicer than the hustle and bustle of going out to eat.

 

I decided to go with a black border to set off the gold trim.

 

In order to make the petals a little more pronounced, I took a black fabric marker and outlined them.

I know there are other ways other than basting with thread and needle to hold the three layers together, but I find this the easiest.

I decided to keep the stitching on the petals  simple; I outlined them.

 

Next, I stitched the stem and bulb.  Again, I kept the stitching on them to a minimal.  On the background, I have decided to treat each square as a separate piece with its own stitch free motion stitch pattern.

 A I mentioned last week, I really enjoyed our visit to the Rockies.

Not only was the wildlife, spectacular, so were the flowers.

 

It's a Flower

 

My brother was redeployed, again.  Everytime, I hear of news from overseas my heart drops.  Luckily, he is only there for six months, this go around.

 

 

The flower is emerging.  This project is coming together a little too easy.

Now the flower looks balanced.

 

 

 The pistens, the bulb and the bud just make it all come together.

 

The material for the bulb had gold in it.  I orignially wanted a gold metallic ribbon trim.  Luckily, I found this open weave gold trim that compliments the flower, yet it is a good contrast to the background.

One of my favorite places was the Rockies at Estes Park in Colorado.

 

The views were breathtaking.

 

 

The wildlife was everywhere to behold.

Looking at the Front and Back

I am counting the days down until the end of the school year, 32 days left to go and then I can relax and sew, sew, sew!

 

I am learning to look at the back of the material as well as the front of the material.  I think I will use the back of the material for the main part of the stem and the right side of the material for the shading.

I am trying to decide what to use for the petals.

 

 

I am audtioning different shades of red for the petals.

 

 

I have finally narrowed it down to three different fabrics.

 

 

I think there is good contrast between the stem and the background. 

 

 

I think I am off to a good start.

 

 

This is another reason I love traveling west by car.

 

 

We were heading north to Denver on a trip and decided to go through Colorado Springs and stopped by the Garden of the Gods.

 

 

The rock formations are awesome!

 

 

Bringing an Amaryllis to Life

 The bundle was delivered safe and sound from Chadick and Rosen just as promised.  Now the hunt is on for the trim.    We did some searching in NYC, but we were not sure what we were looking for. There are plenty of places in Baltimore and Washington to look for it.  We will know what we want when we see it.

 

 

I have always wanted to grow an amaryllis during the winter, so this year I finally did it.  The payoff was this beautiful plant.  Not one bloom, but two.

I decided to turn the photo from color to black and white to a pencil sketch.  It made it very easy to make the pattern.

 

I wanted to treat the amaryllis as a "still life".   I didn't want a plain simple background, so I decided to use different materials and piece it together.   As I pieced it together, I kept placing the pattern of the flower over the background to visualize how the flower would look on the background.  The dark color with the  flower is velvet to add a different texture. 

When we were in North Dakota on one of our trips, we stopped in Mitchell to see the Corn Palace.

The pictures are made with corn husks.

 

It is really something to see.  It reminded me of piecing a quilt.

 

 

 

Grandma and Me is Finished

Got back last night from a two day trip to NYC to buy material for my daughter's wedding dress.  Before we went up I lectured my daughter that we were not going to buy material from the first store nor that day.  I really wanted her to sleep on it and buy it the next day.  I had done my research and with list in after checking into the hotel; we were off to the garment district.   Our first stop was Rosen and Chadick.  We were not disappointed, the fabric selection was great and the personal service was outstanding.  We saw some fabric we liked and had them put it on hold.  We went down the list and scoured samples and bolts for over three hours at other stores finding material we liked.  But....nothing compared to what we saw in the first store.  Yes, we bought material from the first store and we bought it on Friday.  Now, I can't wait to have the bundle delivered this week.  The dress will have three layers and two different colors.

 

Thinking about Van Gough and how he painted the sky in his painting, "The Starry Night"; I tried to add interest to the sky with swirls.  Looking at the sky, I now wish I had stitched the lines closer together.

I decided the shadows did need to be darker, so I went over them with black thread.  For the road, I stitched simple straight lines to try and draw your eye to the back of the piece.
 

 

Finally, finished, after weeks of working on it.  This is my first real composition involving figures and landscape.   Also, I took some liberties and didn't totally duplicate the photo I was using.  Looking critically at the piece, the quilting in the sky is a little off.  By that I mean, the puffiness between the stitches looks a little more pronounced in some areas of the quilt than in others.  Time and practice will correct this problem.

 

If you remember, the Ignalls lived in a little house on the prairie in MO.

 

 

This is a replica of the cabin on the original site.

 

 

 This is the original well Pa dug with Mr. Edwards.

Michelle's Collage

I spent the last ten days on the road driving our annual trip to Oklahoma and back home with my mother.  We went to visit my Aunt Jodie.  Why don't you fly? You ask.  Because I love watching the scenery change and meeting the people along the way.  There is just something exhilarating about getting on the road and knowing the car is heading west.  The Midwest is just so different from the East.   We picked my husband up on the way home in Louisville.  We toured Churchill Downs and visited Wild Turkey and Woodford Reserve distilleries.  Needless to say, I didn't work on my wallhanging this past week.  I decided to share a wallhanging I made for my daughter.

For my daughter's thirtieth birthday, I wanted to celebrate her life and tell her story with pictures.  I wanted lots of pictures, collages were the answer.  On her baby picture, I added her birth information.  Also, I framed her baby picture, because I wanted to make it the focal point of the piece.  On the lower left picture, I listed her schools from prek to college.  I tried to select pictures that represented different milestones in her life.  I used tatted lace medallions to connect the separate collages together.