Vintage Doily Bridal Bouquet

And a silver sixpence in her shoe

Here is my offering for "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue" challenge for the "Art Quilts around the World" group that I belong to.  aroundtheworldin20quilts.blogspot.com  I only learned this week that the next line is "and a silver sixpence in her shoe", so that is the name of this piece.

I struggled for quite a long time to come up with an idea for this challenge, but once inspiration hit I was really excited, and I think this is my favourite of the pieces I have made so far. (Ok, well maybe "Endangered" is still my absolute favourite!)

Naturally I thought about weddings, and associated traditions, which led me on to bridal bouquets. 

 The "something old" are vintage doilies collected over the last few years for no particular reason other than they are beautiful and the result of somebody's work and creativity.  From these I made 10 petals, in graduated sizes, which are actually 10 small quilts in themselves.  As part of the quilting, I ran a gathering stitch about 3-4 rows in from the outside edge, and another one across the bottom of each petal.  When these were pulled up each petal formed a lipped bowl.  When you look into the flower you glimpse all the embroidery, including our favourite, the deer.  You can see petals at different stages of construction here...

"Something new" is a new technique for me of creating a 3 dimensional, structural quilted object.  I "borrowed" the inspiration for this from Lisette http://textileseahorse.blogspot.com.au/ and the beautiful piece she created for the International Quilt Challenge called Lumen.  "Something blue" is the one blue doily I included as an outside cupping petal.

The flower is attached to a thick cardboard roll, covered with soft green velvet to form the stem.

I have completely bent the rules for this challenge, but they are quilts with top, back and batting in between, so I hope this still meets the criteria!


Brigetta's Owl

 this is an owl I (Brigetta) designed and made using a polystyrene ball and some awesome hand-dyed felt. I got the basic idea from a local craft shop. 

Studio update
You know how politicians bury the bad news under other stories, well I am hoping I can bury the disgrace that is my studio after completion of the latest project.  So much for trying to keep on track!  Everything is usually spread all over the dining table, but one guest to dinner and it all gets dumped behind closed doors in the quilting corner, and I am back to where I started!  I am hanging my head in shame!