Dimension

Today's piece is about dimension. I've been thinking about trying something with cotton balls or pom poms for awhile, and it seems fitting to have waited until this month. There are lots of ways to make 2 and 3-D shapes; I went for one of the easier routes today. For the two larger flowers, I used pieces of a cotton ball to make the flower bud shape. I also used the stem stitch and the fishbone stitch; both add additional dimension and texture to the flowers. For the smaller flower, I used a pom pom instead. It's cute.

Since I used an actual cotton ball instead of cotton filing or batting, I had to cut the part of the ball where it's formed since it's hard to sew through. I also ended up trimming the shape a bit more once I had it tacked in place. With the first flower, I didn't extend the upper leaves enough and ended up adding some additional height to them after I finished the flower. I redrew the leaves for the third flower before stitching; it looks a little better than the first. The green parts of the flowers were done first. Doing that first made it easier to work on the buds (for the larger two flowers). I was going to try it with the flower bud first for the third flower, but I realized it would be so hard to do the leaves with the bud already placed.

I like the final result. Most of the examples of this technique I've seen are working on much larger pieces of fabric than what I'm using, so I think I translated it well. The upper leaves need to be wider next time, but they still work. The pom pom flower is fun and quick to make. I used fabric glue instead of stitching it down. I tried stitching first, but it didn't look as good even though I used matching thread.