Mushrooms revisited

 One of my blog buddies, Gwyned Trefethen wrote in her blog today about trying to make a three dimensional mushroom. It reminded me of a piece I made a few years ago for my annual Fiber Works show. The theme was Into the Woods and I knew right away what I wanted to do. My son lives in the Pacific Northwest and is an avid mushroom hunter and cook and photographer. I used some of his photos and some of my own. The center square is hand embroidered and I thought I would do them all that way. But it took forever and I knew I wouldn't finish in time. So the rest of them were printed onto fabric, some by Spoonflower and some by me. I then did machine quilting, trapunto and embellished them with twigs, lichen, tree bark, moss, etc. 

I made nine little quilts, seven inches square and mounted them on a black canvas. It is one of my favorite pieces and currently hangs in my studio.

I am linking up with Off the Wall Friday. 

Under the Sea

 No fish this week, but a different creature under the sea. I used some very old  Lumiere Fabric paint. The lid was taped on and was difficult to remove and the paint was nearly dried out. But I was able to use some fabric medium, whlch lasts forever, and get it to a paintable consistency. I used it for the body of the jelly fish and for the waves in the background. I also added a little bit of dimensional pearl paint.

The twirly bits of the tentacles were made by couching down 6 strands of embroidery floss with one strand of the same color. I don't think I had done hand sewn couching before and it was fun to do. I have a couching foot on my Bernina, but this was all hand embroidery. 

I think he's kind of cute. What do you think?

I'm linking up with Off the Wall Friday. Go check out what some talented people are doing. And leave some comments. We all love comments!