Mother's Tank Top

Mother's day is just around the corner and instead of flowers that will droop in a few days and die, I decided to make some flowers bloom on one of my mom's tank tops with ribbons (something which I'm still learning how-to do). Ribbon embroidery, also referred to as ribbonry, uses ribbons to create pictures, usually flowers and leaves, but can also create decorative stitches. Something similar is shaping 3D flowers out of ribbon, similar to silk flowers used in flower arrangements. From there, one could also dabble in ribbonpoint (cross-stitching using ribbons, Basic Ribbonpoint Technique by Patricia Mabry) or a step further, silk paper (Take Silk: A Guide to Silk Paper for the Creative Fibre Artist by Judith Pinnell). [Both books found at my library.]

I wanted a diagonal line that opened as it went up. Using various roses, I drew the big ones first. From there, to fill in, I added the medium and smaller roses. The lily in the upper-left started as a rose but liking something a bit more "open," I decided on a lily. We'll see about that because that does take away from the theme of roses...

Concept sketch:




From there, I wanted to see what colors to use and sketched this:

Well, that's the easy part… Stay tuned for more details as I work on it. And since I won't be going home until my sister graduates (Sat, June 5), I have a bit of extra time. ;). See you next week!