Jumpin’ Off Place

I had knee surgery June 12. I’m still in quite a bit of pain, and going to physical therapy 3 times per week. I can’t bend my knee very well (though I DID manage to go to 90 degrees in PT BY MYSELF yesterday — woowoo!), but I’m doing OK. Just a little frustrated. I wasn’t expecting to be this completely debilitated for this long.

However. So. I’m allowed to sew for 30-40 minutes a day right now, because of the strain it puts on my knee to use the pedal. Because of this limitation, I’ve been spending a lot of time with the iron and spray starch instead. So preparing machine applique projects is perfect.

I started this flower in a class with Barbara Olson back in April — the pattern she gave us for the class is the same one that’s featured on page one of her website right now. So we made that flower, using our own fabrics. Mine has been almost finished — but the center not committed and the petals not sewn together and the edges not pressed under since… April.

Tonight I finished pressing under the seam allowances (love my Rowenta iron — HOT HOT HOT HOT) and sewed the petals together and finished the center. Very excited with how it turned out.

Now I just have to figure out what the heck to PUT this thing on.

I’ve been auditioning fabrics like a crazy woman. And shopping for fabrics as much as possible, given my condition at the moment. Today, my mom, my friend Linda, and I hit two quilt shops and I was hoping to find something neat… Struck out, really. I got some GREAT fabrics, but nothing that really makes the flower sing.

I could put it on solid black and just quilt the crap out of it like Barbara Olson did, but I kinda want to forge my own trail, if that makes any sense…

Other than black, the colors it seems to work the best on are turquoise/aqua/pale blue or yellow/orange. Everything else makes it just sort of fade away into the background, instead of showcasing this cool flower.

Here’s the flower, just sitting on the design wall tonight:

It’s much brighter IRL; I was too lazy to color-correct. LOL

Earlier this week, I was experimenting with adding some spirals and funky stuff to the background, but have abandoned that idea for the moment… It looks like two different people worked on it and didn’t really try to integrate the concepts at all. I’ll use the spirals/leaves for something else, I think. Here’s that effort:

Kind of like Matisse and ….. somebody else got together and tried to put a piece together. Uh, not so much.

SO.

My mom suggested a graphic black and white print. On top of that, the veins of the petals of the flowers just sort of disappear, and it doesn’t really work. On top of a light yellow fabric, it’s just kind of flat. On top of an impulse purchased orange spiky batik fabric that I got today, it looks better than on anything else, but it’s still not right.

Jerry’s suggestion was to put the flower on a sunburst. So I started playing in Photoshop. My background selection efforts are very sloppy here so chunks of the flower are actually missing — I was trying to go fast because I just want to see the basic idea. But anyway.

Jerry and I agree that the rays would need to be narrower and/or possibly pieced themselves… but here’s one idea:

Thanks to ScrapGirls.com for the assist on the items used to create that background in a whopping 3 minutes.

And here’s another idea that I had earlier this week (and the fabrics are already enroute — but can be used in a commissioned piece if not for this one):

Now you know why I’m having trouble sleeping. I’m a little wound up about being able to sew again.