Friday

Belle Prairie Botanical Embroidery Collection

Be still my heart!  I am so in love with the Belle Prairie Collection and the meaning behind all of the flowers that I can't wait to share them with you.  We designed the Belle Prairie Barn Quilt with each block having a flower that was on the prairie.  When we were traveling last year through my grandmother's beloved prairie's we found a garden that had a plaque listing the wildflowers of the prairie and how they were given between friends and loved ones in times of joy and sorrow.  

I was so moved by this garden and our time there on my ancestors land that we decided to make 2018 our Belle Prairie year and one of my favorite parts of this collection are the Botanical Embroidery patterns and kits!  Being on the plains with the grasses blowing and the flowers tucked between their amber blades, I felt for a brief moment that connection to my past, with the women of that land.   My grandmother told stories of it's beauty, which I never quite understood being from the gorgeous rolling hills of upstate New York.  That evening on the plains, I felt it and understood why their friendships and dedications to each other and family was such a gift to them and to me.


Forget Me Knot
Remembrance

Behind me was the cemetery where my great-grandparents and their parents were buried.  In front of me was the land they homesteaded on faith and prayers, with not much else to call their own.  You could tell it was there land being from New York, because is a sea of nothing but grasses as far as your eyes could stretch, their plat was surrounded by large green trees.  It was their hope, planting trees.  Trees take forever to grow, almost as if they planted them for us to know they once loved that flat piece of land.  

I stayed on that dirt road until the sun went down and the crickets began to sing.  Years of stories came alive and will stay in my heart.  These twelve flowers were all they had to give each other as the nearest florist was hundreds of miles away in the big city.  Each with a cherished meaning and a simple beauty.

I designed these patterns to look like the old wall paper botanical drawings my grandparents had in their library.  I wanted a black background to resemble the style of the old black paper photo albums that we would collect and press wildflowers into.  I used a variety of flosses for the stitching to give it an aged non-commercial look and kept the stitches fairly simple like the strokes of a pencil.



Queen Anne's Lace 
Devotion


Rue Anomie
I'm Sorry


Wild Clover
Faith, Hope, Love & a Little Luck


I have six more in the works for a total of twelve, and a spectacular collaboration garden embroidery pattern that will be out very soon.  My goal is to create a new Belle Prairie Botanical Quilt with all twelve prints.  

I hope you love these as much as we do.  I walk into my sewing room everyday and look at the wall with them on it and sigh...like I'm somehow transported to that magical evening on the prairie. I wish I could take you all there with me, but until then I share the Belle Prairie Flowers from one friend to another.

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