Femina I: He's Gone by Kathie R Kerler

My chosen theme for this series, Femina, is loss. It's specifically the loss of my son.

I looked for a somber fabric and chose this one by Robert Kaufman. The heavy sky reflects the feelings I wanted to convey.

I wanted to keep the story of my loss simple and decided upon a wilting flower. It both symbolizes my son and how I felt at his passing: defeated. I looked on-line at flower blossom and then did sketches of my own.

I ultimately drew the multi-petaled flower below.

Next I chose the palette for the flower and landscape.

First I constructed the flower.

Then the hills and landscape below.

I had drawn a heavy cloud to show sorrow in my sketches. I wondered if I could embroider this outline in the sky.

Would the embroidery interfere with the implied clouds and raindrops I was considering? I laid cellophane over the quilt top to audition my ideas.

Wasn't sure about this idea, so I tried some individual clouds cut from a gray mottled fabric. But I didn't think that was any better. I had also been trying to decide on whether the hills should be grounded in brown fabric and decided against that, as well.

Ultimately, I embroidered the implied lines of stormy clouds. It complimented my desire for simplicity.

The completed piece. I kept the quilting equally as simple as the composition. I quilted next to the cloudline in the sky. I quilted around the flower, stem, leaves, falling petals and satin-stitched teardrops. In the hills, I quilted both above and below the embroidery that defines them.