Queen of the May

Wednesday, June 2, 2010



Another view of my project.


The Penstemon azureus whose hues inspired me.


This month is The May Queen in a Western Hawthorn Leaf! I've had this little Goddess spiral pendant for a very long time but since I don't really wear much gold-colored jewelery I never got around to incorporating Her into a necklace. But I love the design and the gold color is perfect to evoke the afternoon light through a verdant mixed evergreen forest in May. And May was especially verdant this year with above average rainfall! So I adorned my little May Queen with a bunch of green beads, with some Penstemon purple and blue colors as well. I also scattered some beads in those colors outside the leaf. Penstemons come in a range of colors but here I was inspired by Penstemon azureus. But the upper left represents a Clarkia unguiculata flower - the common name is Farewell to Spring! The model for my Western Hawthorn (Crataegus douglasii) leaf was the little hawthorn I bought this year at the native plant sale. It's the plant that you can see a bit of in the background! Anyway I had fun with this, but it was challenging to figure how to make the leaf margin look serrated. It was pretty simple to stitch, though, once I figured out how to do it - I think you can see from the picture what I did. The other problem when I first started was unexpected - I had trouble attaching the pendant because it's fairly heavy! But eventually persistence paid off and once I ran the thread through a few times it stayed put. And I love using these batik fabrics! The colors are so much fun to look at and work with. I'm also really liking using the interleaving paper to back these!

3 comments:

robin michelle said...

Very pretty! I like the little Goddess pendant and it really looks nice in the center. The leaf edges came out well I think. The batiks are nice. Did you get more? I think I might have some you can look at. They probably aren't green though!

Anonymous said...

Your piece is lovely! I recognize the spiral on your pendant as a Celtic spiral (or swirl). It has much ancient meaning, perfect for a goddess pendant. Perhaps you can find pics and something about it on the web.

Robin said...

How lovely, Jill!!!! Just the right amount of beads and exactly the right colors. I especially love how you twined the beads around the goddess's arms. I think she's way more special here than she would be on a necklace!

Robin A.

 
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