Looking Up Close

The latest challenge for our 12 x 12 group is 'Magnification'; take our cameras and zoooooom in.  At first, I thought this was just terrific, but as time passed, none of the close-up photos I took inspired me to action. 

Finally, thirty days prior to the challenge's deadline, I knew I needed to jump into action.  Ah-ha!  I just planted flowers that day.  I grabbed my camera and took photos that did inspire me.  Here is the photo that was used for my piece:

After a little rotate and crop, I uploaded the image to spoonflower.com to have it printed on fabric.  If you have you have not tried Spoonflower, you should give it a try- it is easy to use, your fabric arrives in about 5-10 days, and the quality is wonderful!  I have printed on fabric with my inkjet printer, but Spoonflower lets you get a larger piece of fabric with much, much better quality.  This is picture of the fat quarter sized fabric printed with my flower:

The next steps went quite quickly...I stitched my heart out. I machine quilted, hand-embroidered , and added hand-dyed velvet for the border and flower center.  AND this is my final piece: