Spring of Creativity

Here's my second challenge quilt for The Artist's Muse group. The chapter discussion was Spring of Creativity.
The individual challenges were as follows: create a piece to depict flowers on a pieced green background using 3 or more green fabrics using a repetition of one to three shapes and then add some punch to your design by adding one unexpected shape or color to create an off center focal area.

Do you think I met the challenge??

The background is a lot of chopped bits of fabric, thread clippings, avocado bag pieces and fuzz balls from the cut end of newly washed fabric. It was all layered in between water soluble stabilizer and stitched like crazy. After the stabilizer was dissolved, the piece was stitched to an irregular background. I was inspired by the amazing ice plants that bloom every spring outside my sewing room (see the post on Mother's Day). The three-dimensional construction is very simple, but effective. Basically, it is a strip folded in half, gathered and clipped. I had a difficult time getting the butterfly embroidered just right. You can see from my last post, I used a different butterfly. As expected, the first one was way too big, the second one wasn't sturdy enough to stand up, but the third one was just perfect!
This challenge was a lot of fun and I'm really pleased with the results. I'm thinking that I will mount and frame this piece somehow. It is fairly thick, three-eights of an inch, and pretty heavy. I would like to hear any suggestions you might have for framing.

Textile Gifts

My boss just came back from a trip to Vietnam. She brought back some really special textiles for me. Their outfits are so elaborate and colorful. Very exciting! The long piece is used as a belt or wrapped around their legs, it is hand embroidered. The background piece is used as a skirt over other clothing. It has a multitude of trims and rickrack sewed down. The indigo pieces would probably be used as insets of a blouse. They are hand embroidered.

My friend, Isabel, lived in Guatemala for several years and collected a lot of hand woven fabric. It is hand dyed on the side of the road and then woven by the same woman on a loom that is attached to her body. It is so perfectly done, it is difficult to believe it is hand made!