Garden Path - Jacket - Part XXVIII

Lilies, Part 1

I've got all the flowers stitched on to the border except the lilies. No problem. I made all the lily parts, stitched the lily on, took a good look at it and - I'll give you one guess here - I hated it. Take a look:

I asked the children what they thought. I got replies like, it looks like an octopus or a Christmas tree star. One of the children astutely pointed out that it couldn't be an octopus because it didn't have eight legs, it only had six. Regardless, this was not the reaction I was hoping for. At least with the other flowers they can be readily identified as flowers!

Well, that of course brings me back to the drawing board. A very long time ago when I started this project, I made both paper and metal templates for almost all the flowers, lilies included. I pulled out the metal template, some white satin, and the wood burning tool and cut some samples. This one at least looks more like a lily:

For Sample #2, I decided to make a new template and to try to turn the petals under a bit. My daughter wanted flowers instead of balloons for her birthday party (you know they're growing up when they don't want balloons anymore!), so she picked out some peach colored lilies and alstromeria. Fortunately for me, I was able to steal a sample petal and make a new template. This is Sample #2, with a little help from a Sharpie marker, too:

Sample #3 is the best of the lot, with some petals curving under and some not, for a little more depth and texture. You can see the new template in this photo, too.


Now, will it fit and how will it look with the other flowers?

Not too bad actually! I went to Jo-ann's this afternoon in search of cheap orange satin and to my delight, they've already put out such fabric for making Halloween costumes.

Now, I've also not been in love with the very large roses. For some reason, even though they are big, the daises and coneflowers overshadow them. I've decided to remove them, just the very large ones, not the medium ones or rose buds. I actually like those because they do not have beads, sequins or any sort of sparkly thread. They are neutral in that sense and provide a resting place for the eye from the glitter.

The large rose at center back will be replaced with a lily, and the two at the side seams with a new flower, the gerbera daisy. This daisy is larger than the white variety, will be bright pink like the roses, and is large in real life, too, with blooms of 4 to 5 inches. I will make the centers in bright green, which will be different from the white ones.

Between tonight and tomorrow, I'll be doing quite a bit of removing, making new petals and attaching new flowers. I hope to get that last piece of narrow trim done, too.

Parting Shot: Nice Roses. I am certainly not going to rip these ones apart! My husband sent me roses for our anniversary tomorrow - 16 years!