Spring CQ...California Poppies

They spread all over my garden like weeds, and I have to pull most of them out to keep them from taking over. But I love how California Poppies add such a cheerful jolt of orange to the garden every year in their haphazard way.

The leaves are delicate and so I decided to try my hand at creating them with "thread painting". I'd never done this before, but it was pretty easy and fun...

I stretched some water soluable stabilize into a hoop, drew a rough sketch of a poppy plant with a water soluable marker (not wanting any stray ink to float onto my threads when I later dissolved the stabilizer), and began free form straight stitching with cotton machine embroidery thread. Feeddogs down.

The stitching is completed here and the excess stabilizer cut off.

The stitching has been dunked in cold water, swished around, then blotted with a paper towel and ironed flat. I did have to clip off a few loose threads here and there, but all in all not bad for a first attempt.

Then I sewed it onto the quilt with the same thread. This took awhile, which is why I am a day late posting this...took longer than I thought it would. Picky, picky, picky.

Plus, just like in my garden, the poppies spread like weeds on my quilt too.
This shows how I designed the second and third poppy plants to make sure they fit in their designated spaces. I pinned some tracing paper over the area and sketched the plant to fit into the space.

When all the leaves and stems were on, it was time to make the flowers. These are two colors of orange fabric fused together, cut out into petal shapes, and then sewn together at the bottom. The side petals are each folded with the fold sewn into place.

I sewed them on with 6 strands of silk embroidery floss to cover the edges.

And here is Poppy #1.....

and Poppy #2....

...and Poppy #3.

They would spread all over the whole dang quilt if I let them!

I'm almost done with the "outer ring" of flowers. The next area to fill in will be along side the iris...lots of contenders for the honor are growing out there now in this glorious month of July......

And then I will be able to start in on the quilt's center, covering seams along the way, of course, with the simple seam treatments I have going...mostly herringbone, to keep the look uncluttered so the focus is on the flowers.

Pink, I need more pink! *Must*Find*Pink*......

Hmmmmmmm........