Stargazer

This week I finished a wall hanging I started at a workshop in May which I took from a local teacher who taught us how to translate a  photograph of a flower into a quilted fabric piece.  The basic idea was to make a paper pattern from the photograph, cut out the pattern pieces onto fabrics you had selected, and glue them down on a piece of muslin.  Once the flower was constructed onto the muslin you cut away the muslin around the flower and then attached the flower to a background fabric.  

There is nothing new about this concept, but our teacher had developed her own unique way of achieving the steps.  This is not unusual.   Many people come up with their own technique as they attempt to put the basic plan into action.  There are many quilters who teach their techniques on a national level.   I liked the local teacher who was offering to share her method and was excited about the class.  

The teacher generously provided several photographs she had taken in her garden and that she thought would be easy for us to work with.  I chose her beautiful Stargazer Lily.  

For me, the process of making the pattern and then the pattern pieces was difficult and frustrating.  I soon found that I had to develop my own way of doing this.  I would tell you how, but honestly, I don't think I could write it up in any understandable way.  That seems to be a recurring reality;  people come with their own methods and as long as it works for them, great.  I can only say that I know that I built the petals onto parchment paper, sometimes using a pattern piece and sometimes just cutting the fabric and making it work.  Each petal was then moved to the muslin.  I took no photos of the "pattern-creation" part of this process, and the first I find in my files is this one of four of the five petals attached to the muslin.   

Here is the entire flower on the muslin pinned on the design wall along with notes on what I wanted to do next.  I just kept looking at the photo, compared it to what I had on the wall, and then changed anything I wasn't liking.  I had no interest in making a faithful replication of the photo, just wanted to capture the exuberant colors of the flower and the happy way it made me feel to look at it.

Once I got through the petal building, things got more fun, especially the step of finding the perfect background and then stitching the flower.  The green lattice batik was a perfect choice, I think, and I loved doing all the stitching.   I also used some Inktense pencils and some paint to add shading where I thought it was needed.

Here's a detail of the most challenging part, the center of the flower.

 I'm pretty happy with the result!  This piece is going to my sister-in-law Dawn, who loves bright happy colors and has a thing for flowers.   She took one look at it in its early stage and said "I hope that's for me!"  And it is.

Linking to Nina Marie's Off the Wall Fridays.