Sunflower Thread Painting Christmas Gift

this year I started a new job in Forensics at my local police department and met a great group of friends. One of my coworker’s Ashley saw my thread paintings on social media and said she would love to have a sunflower. She also had a brilliant idea to try framing the thread painting instead of making a mini quilt. So I decided to surprise her for Christmas and do both, make a sunflower thread painting for her and frame it in a rustic frame (to match her home decor). She mentioned that she liked blues so I found the most perfect blue background fabric that makes it appear to be raining on the sunflower. I chose a Rashida Coleman-Hale print in her fabric collection Raindrop called Precipitation in teal (metallic) for Cotton and Steel.

 

I decided to make the thread painting look somewhat realistic. I started by drawing out the design on paper to see what i thought, and then i drew a similar design on my fabric with a Frixon pen. I backed the fabric with Peltex on 72F Double-sided Fusible and SF 101.

I started in the center and tried to create the bumpy, bead-like texture of the sunflower center. I used Aurifil 50 wt threads in greens, tans, browns, and gold. For the petals I used three different golds/yellow Aurifil threads.

I added a stem and a few leaves to give the flower a life-like appearance. I used a few shades of green and tan Aurifil threads.

For the overall quilting I freemotion quilted (using Aurifil 50wt threads) a stipple pattern in the same direction as the rain in the background.

I bought a frame that matched the escthetic perfectly by pairing the golds/ tans/ greens with the rustic qualities!

I absolutely love the way the thread painting turned out, frame and all!

Happy quilting!!

XX Casey