First Place, Professional Original

Inspired by the beautiful shores of Michigan, my plan was to create a piece with treasures from the Great Lakes. It took many trips and beach combing along Lake Michigan and Lake Huron to find what I needed: Petoskey stones, driftwood, beach stones, shells and beach glass.

To serve as a background, I created curved lines inspired by the water movement onto the sand, which included some pulled work to represent the patterns left behind by the ebb and flow of endless waves. The piece was filled with my treasures and I surrounded them with stitches representing other parts of nature found in and around the water.