How It Was Done

“The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” 
― Sylvia Plath, 

     Yesterday, I got the news that my latest art quilt, "Century Plant at Big Bend" was selected to be in the SAQA TEXtile Conference Show which will be in San Antonio the first week in April.  This Call to Entry was for Texas members  only as we are hosting the International SAQA Conference in our state this year.  I am very honored to be among many well-known artists to showcase our talents to the rest of SAQA attending.  I have had several people ask how I made this particular work of art so I decided to do a blog on that very subject.

"Century Plant at Big Bend"

     First, the inspiration...we were charged with the subject 'anything' Texas!  So I went through all my photos of various places I had visited throughout the state and came up with a composite of several pics.

Painted background 

    Then I got a piece of canvas and stretched it out on my table in my paint studio. I proceeded to paint a wash in the background with watery acrylic paints.

Second phase

I then added some grassy area with the start of some cactus and other plant life and the stalk of the century plant. When that was dry, I put the whole thing on a black batting and a back fabric to do some machine stitching in the sky area and the rocky background area.

Third step

I put it all up on my design wall and  began adding fabric to create more dimension to the grasses and plants by freeform cutting them and using fabric glue, just a dab, to hold them in place.

Closeup-the little blooms are about dime size, or smaller

Closeup- after some further machine stitching on the grasses

Workspace in my sewing studio

So I had drawn out on paper  the size of my stalk and then proceeded to hand cut my blooms
out of various batik fabrics of greens and yellows.  And placed them around the paper stalk to see how many I might want to add. Then I decided to give them more texture by covering them with French knots (you who sew or embroider will know what that is! For any one interested I have linked you to a Youtube Tutorial on how to make them!) I had fused each bloom to a felt background for added strength  and proceeded to add the French knots.  A great "sitting in front of the TV time"!  LOTS of time to catch up on my recorded PBS shows and Netflix series I had fallen behind on!

After having finishing all the French knots, it was back upstairs to my paint studio to paint the edges of the blooms so the white felt wouldn't show.

Close up

With the whole thing lying flat on my studio table, I first cut coordinating background fabric for each bloom and began to place them on the stalk, as well as adding fabric stems. These were all glued down to hold in place while stitching.

Back to the Design Wall

After checking out everything on the design wall...at this point I could still reposition the blooms, I took it back to my table and began hand stitching the blooms and stems to the stalk.  I had thought I might be able to machine stitch them down but it all became a bit too heavy to manipulate at a the machine..thus hand stitching!

Close up of blooms

So from the above picture, you can see the French knots which are on approximately thirty blooms of various sizes.  And how I hand-stitched each to the background.  It was all so thick at times that I had to use one of my most elegant sewing tools, the pliers, to pull the thread through!

The Border

And almost the last thing to do!  I trimmed all the edges of the batting and backing to 2 1/2 inches then pieced a border from the brown and green fabric I chose.  At this point, I am using another "uncommon for sewing"  piece of furniture for placing the border (it is not sewn down at this point)...my bed!  I have a large cardboard graph which I can place on my bed and can then work all the way around it. After deciding where to place the border, I flip it over, pin it down and go to the machine to sew it together on the artwork.

The last thing to do is to decided whether to put a binding on (which would show on the front) or to face it which, while finishing up the edges,  will not show on the front. And to add sleeve on the back to hang it.

And.....that's all, folks!!!!