Back Garden 05 - Work In Progress

Yesterday was a marathon day for working on this piece. This morning I put some of the last hand embroidery stitches in place. I have to do a bit more machine stitching on some foilage and it will be finished - well, the framing still has to be done!  Here's a bit of yesterdays progress. I wanted to add poppies to the garden. In the summer, it is loaded with them along the fence and over into the corner. They migrated from the garden behind this one. I decided to take a short cut in the top photo by making the poppies from red silk with French knots for the centers. But they did not look right so back to the sewing machine. I experimented with free motion stitching on red organza. I'm pleased with the outcome. I'm not looking for photo realistic flowers but representations of them. The daisies were all hand done on a wash away interfacing and hand stitched in place. I've used daisies like these in a number of my landscapes. The fence is from white cotton that I painted over with white paint. I found that the fabric before painting is transparent and that wouldn't do for a 'wooden' fence.