Challenge 4 Art: WINTER

The third 'Challenge 4 Art' theme is WINTER.  I knew I had to make something with snow, because when you say 'winter' to me, it means snow and all the memories and emotions attached to it!

So many memories of snow come to mind when I think of all the winters I spent in Canada as a kid.  When we were children, we would make forts in the snowbanks, build snowmen, make snow-angels.  My mother would put up a set of Styrofoam laser cut snowflakes on the big tree in the front yard and we would rescue them daily when they blew off the tree during the night!  My parents had snowmobiles and we spent many winter days out on the snow in a 'caboose' that dad built and pulled behind the Alouette.  We would catch snowflakes on our mittens and try to catch them on our tongues!  Then there were the snow days at school when we would make paper mache creations!  Tobogganing in the snow on the hill at the primary school.  Shovelling the snow off the driveway.  Wearing snow pants and having mittens on a string dangling out from the sleeves of the coat.... ahhhh - winter!

Things I love about WINTER:

The quiet of winter. 

The tranquillity, crispness, cleanliness.

The peacefulness and beauty of a fresh snowfall. 

Bright sunny days with snow glistening. 

White snow that looks blue in the shadows. 

The sensation of ice crystals forming on your eyelashes. 

The sound of the crunch when you walk on packing snow. 

The sound of the crunch when you walk on dry snow - totally different from packing snow. 

Waking to the first snow covering of the season - the thrill of it!

Being the first person to make tracks on a field of fresh snow! 

Writing your name in the snow using your boot prints!

The fresh, crisp, bracing air, inhaled deeply to make you feel alive.
Breaking icicles off the things they dripped from.

Size:  18.5" x 13.25" (it isn't really this wonky)!  Photo taken after washing and drying.

I used 8 different white, off-white and white-on-white fabrics as my background, pieced in a random, haphazard way to symbolise the way snow can fall.  I then embroidered two snowflakes using Perle and Anchor floss, including two different colours of shimmer/silver threads to help give a sparkle (like snow glistening) to the snow, plus I machine stitched three more snowflakes on the top and through one layer of wadding.

Before washing and drying.

I also made dozens of french knots to represent snow flakes in the distance!  To sandwich the three layers together, I used a fancy circular satin stitch on my machine.  Small wonky circles are dotted around the mini and could represent snowballs! 

Before washing and drying

The previous challenges have been to interpret GROWTH and BLUE.  I love these challenges - it is fun to sew to a theme and be creative and not know what the others in the group are sewing, and to finally see how they have interpreted the theme on reveal day!  I am excited to see what Ellie Q of Color My Word and Susannah of Fiberchick have made!  Claudia will be back for Challenge #4!

Satin stitch snowflake.  After washing and drying.

To read more about what 'Challenge for Art' is all about, see my posts HERE and HERE.

Linking to She Can Quilt for the 4th Quarter FAL.  Here is my original post about my goals.