13" diameter
> 2005 ANG Seminar, Nashville. Awards: BEST OF SHOW - Original Needle Art,
Professional Category - 1st Prize - plus Judges Choice

The story of "Babes In The Woods"

When I 'interpret' a painted canvas, I have the luxury of knowing what the piece is about, the feeling, mood, and colors. In effect, I can enter the world of the canvas immediately. When I create a canvas collage, I'm confronted with a blank canvas, my stash of fabric and threads and that's all.

My motivation comes from my favorite phrase,"start with what you know".

What did I know when I started 'Babes in the Woods'? I knew that I wanted to create a circular piece. Next I explored my fabric stash and found my 'women' fabric. I'd always wondered where I'd use it. I selected a group of fabrics to combine with the women and with the emerging feeling of being in a safe protected sheltered place in nature.

I like to 'name' to a piece early in its creation, even if the name will eventually change. As I work, I'm asking myself, 'what is this piece saying?' and it helps to keep me on track.

'Babes in the Woods' began to tell me that I was creating a women's circle, the bonding of women, the comfort of stories shared and the comfort of just being together even when one wanders away to have time alone in contemplation.

If you look carefully at the outer circle, you will see the remaining outlines of triangle shapes that formed the base for the 'forest' surrounding the women. Appliqués, threads, beads, scrunched silk ribbon began to imitate a forest, river, flowers, with the sun sparkling through the trees.

I loved creating this retreat in the forest, dressing the women, styling and braiding their hair 'over' the original print of the fabric.

Needlepoint background ties the pieces together. The inner circle in the background is stitched with overdyes, very random as nature would be. Your imagination can fill in the details of what is happening in the distance. The Babes are standing on a path stitched with overdye cotton and overdye wool. I find that wool is a wonderful fiber to use sparingly because it attaches to other fiber creating a strong attachment visually and a feeling of warm comfort texturally. The wool works its way down into the river bank, creating the feeling of dense grass.

I've used many fibers, silk, cotton, overdyes, velvet, metallic, silk ribbon, suede, ultra suede, boucle and beads. All textures work well together as long as the colors are right.

The outer circle features flowers and vines flowing downward. This appliqué, 'cut out' from a batik fabric was the cohesive element that allowed the triangle shapes to flow together. I was astonished at how perfect the colors were when the flowers were removed from their background.

I've used many design elements, threads, and stitching techniques which allow this piece to flow and carry the eye around and around, looking for detail.

>Click within the stitchings to see the detail images: