Honorable Mention, Professional Original

In the past, I figured out how to needleweave flowers, a butterfly, and leaves in Hardanger. I wanted to use them in one design. So, I found photos of Minnesota wildflowers, built in a frame of modified klosters, and began weaving. Working between designing on paper and stitching the model, I added harebells, violets, and a butterfly and then designed and added marigolds and coneflowers. My husband suggested that a wildflower garden must have mushrooms, so I found a place to weave mushrooms.

This was Hardanger rocket science, as I needed to bury multiple, colored thread-ends behind woven bars and hold them out of the way, skip bars that made up flower components (they couldn’t be successfully wrapped if already woven), and change threads for weaving bars before running a low of a weaving thread as I encountered flowers.

The cherry wood box became the perfect home for my garden.