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In stark contrast to January, February represents the beautiful roses given to me by my husband on Valentine’s day. We had agreed that we would not get anything for each other – our schedules had been very hectic, and I was working on another big project for the client of January fame. In fact, a co-worker had flown in and was working at our house for a couple of days to try to finish it up on time. My husband had to go pick up our daughter at her college and drive her to Boston, where she was going to be a session aide at a Science conference. Of course, he was picking up some red roses for her – she had been having a tough time and needed a pick-me-up. When he returned with her flowers, he called me into the kitchen to see. They were gorgeous. What I didn’t notice until I walked back into my office was the dozen yellow roses sitting in my studio for me!!! They were accompanied by a very mushy card, which is completely unlike him. This was my attempt at preserving forever the memory of those gorgeous flowers.

The large yellow rose is made from 14 different pieces of fabric, machine-appliqued under a layer of tulle. The background is made of several different black fabrics, pieced to resemble a crazy-quilt block. The row of yellow rosebuds consists of a chain stitched vine with silk ribbon buds, embroidered leaves, and seed bead embellishment. The roses on the left are made from cast-on stitches. The feather-stitched seam embellishment on the bottom right is embellished with seed beads, vintage glass flowers, and pressed glass leaves. Free-motion machine quilted.

Materials: cotton, hand-dyed silk, other fabrics, Oliver Twist threads, Caron threads, Petals silk ribbon, assorted beads.

Techniques: hand embroidery, machine appliqué, beading, free motion embroidery and quilting