More on irises

I've gone back to my files for another iris picture. I'm dreaming of springtime, when these pretties are actually blooming again. It's going to be a while. They're not even pretending to think about it yet. But they haunt my dreams and invade my quilts. No doubt about it.

You've seen "Queen of the Garden" and the follow-up "Sentries of the Garden." Sentries fixed the border and background issues, but I still hadn't dealt with the central design criticisms. The judges didn't like the way the design was "lost," even though I loved the way the iris did the floaty thing. I just had to do it one more time. This time, I lost the background, and focused on the iris itself. No garden, just the iris. I finished this earlier this month. What do you think?

"Psalm 46:10 Be Still"
40.5" x 40.5"
2008

It is hand-appliqued and hand-quilted. The lettering in the border is a combination of applique and embroidery.

The colors of these pictures aren't as vivid as they are in person, but they give you the idea.

I've been asked how I did the lettering in the border. I found a font I liked on the computer and printed it out. Then I traced it on the dark purple with a light box, then cut-away the waste as I appliquéd letter by letter.

When I called up this picture, I noticed that "More Glorious Than Solomon" is folded on the table behind this border. "More Glorious" was in the process of being quilted. "More Glorious" was finished in August of 2005. For those of you who wonder, "How long does it take to make a quilt?" this is a clue. I believe that I'd already appliqued the interior of the "Be Still" quilt by this time, but it took years to reach the point where I was actually in the process of quilting it. One of those Ecclesiastes things about a time for everything and everything in its time...