This piece has taken me awhile to finish. I had lots of starts and stops as the piece just seemed to need time to develop. I would work on something, finish that idea and then just need to step back and wait to decide how to go on.
Step one was hand coloring this wonderful vintage napkin. I have had a set of six of these water lily napkins in my stash of vintage textiles. When I found them theynseemed to be a work in progress. Some had the cutwork areas still intact while others had various amounts of the cutwork finished. I used both a finished and unfinished napkin in the final piece. You can see the difference in the above photo (an unfinished napkin) and the detailed photo below which shows some of the cutwork in place.
I'm not sure where I picked these napkins up but I've always loved them. The napkins were a cream color and I spent some time playing with changing the color. I wanted a more sepia/aged look while retaining an organic nature.
Most of the color work was done with Tsukineko Inks. Different types of accent marked were also used.
The next steps was to stitch the napkin to a backing fabric and then thread paint like crazy. When I finished thread painting the flower I free motion quilted the sides and turned under the edges to make a finished knife edge.
I then used inks and markers to add shading to various areas.
I reinforced the edges to give them a crisp edge. My hope was that the addition of this extra interfacing would help keep the corners extra firm.
Embroidery, and beads were added. I also a string of "knotting" was added along the edges.
Because I wanted the piece to hang in the on-point perspective I wanted to add the piece to a base.
I made a quilt sandwich withlinen toweling, batting and cotton backing. I free motioned quilted this in a design I hoped would reference wood grain. I then added the napkin pieces to the corners. After I colored the napkin I needed to cut the napkin into quarters to fit as corners under the top piece.
The binding was done on a curve. Batting is a 80/20. Finished size: 26.25" X 26.25"
According to the Department of Natural Resouces for Minnesota The White Water Lily which grows in mucky low water areas is important to the natural balance as it is an excellent habitat for fish and the seeds are eaten by waterfowl. Management questions should be addressed to the DNR.
I really love how it all turned out. I hope you enjoyed hearing about my journey to finish Water Lily.
Have a great day!
MaryEllen
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