Finally There Are Flowers

I've been dropping very large hints that Holi would have flowers somewhere on her person and last night I finally arrived at a point where I could start adding them. When I first saw the set of six pet guardian angels, I thought they should hold something in their paws. I didn't have a clue what until Holi started to evolve in my mind. The colors she wears were originally sparked by a photo of crepe paper flowers, after all. Since Holi celebrates those flowers and the Indian Festival of Holi (color), it seemed appropriate to add folk art style flowers on her halo and in one paw. She holds my interpretation of the hibiscus that has a third bud opening here in CH this morning. The center of the flower is 4-5 pink French knots in my pink Trebizond, surrounded by petals in the orange Panache and red Patina and a touch of the same red medium silk perle by Gloriana that makes up the braid on her sleeve in a French knot next to the pink ones. Folk art flowers are shaded with bright colors, after all. I used these two sources which both have images of Mexican floral embroidery for inspiration.

http://alliesinstitches.blogspot.com/2009/01/oaxacan-embroidery.html

http://worldembroideries.blogspot.com/2009/01/huipul-from-central-america.html

Holi's halo has one lazy daizy flower so far, done in a bit of the red Patina which I unraveled (Patina is a rayon perle thread) from the strand and then made petals from. The red center is a fake bullion in the red Gloriana perle. To make fake bullions, tie a knot in your perle thread (it doesn't work for any other type of thread than perle), come up, pull on one part of the perle and slide the other bits down to the canvas, thread up the ends of the unraveling perle again and tie off on the back. Easy!

The fake bullion technique is adapted from something the thread magician David McCaskill taught us on the ANG email list. Thanks, David!

Jane/Chilly Hollow
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow