Botanical Sketches

In the rush to get stuff finished for my big show a couple of weeks ago, I didn’t really get to take nice pix of my Botanical Sketches, and they didn’t even get their own post, which the really do deserve! The motif is one I’ve worked with on my Going Green Totes, Journals, and the Freshly Picked baby outfits, but they were all warm ups for these little art quilts. It was close to 2 years ago when I was inspired to sketchily stitch a sprig of leaves across an asymmetrical color block after seeing the work of Skinny LaMinx (an entire post devoted to how she inspires me is in the pipeline…). I loved it, and stuck it up on my design wall (of course, I should show you a picture of it, but it fell down a few months ago and Stirling ate it…)

Any old who, it ticked away in the back of my mind for awhile, but I wasn’t quite sure how I wanted to construct the quilts, but in the meantime worked on my free motion sketching skills making the bags and journals. When I tried using Peltex in the quilt sandwich in this quilt, I knew I had the construction method I wanted, then it was a matter of finding the time, and Bob’s your Uncle, my Botanical Sketches series:

There’s a video of me stitching a Black Eyed Susan here. This was one of the movies I had playing all weekend long in my booth. A common question was whether or not I marked on the fabric first – No, I do not. I mean for these to truly be sketches, to show that these are done by hand, with spontaneity.

I’ve finally got them listed in my Etsy shop. Pictures of the whole series are in my gallery, but here are a few more, cause I love them so: