Art Quiltlets: Poppy Landescapes

California spring is waving with poppies, and this year they really command my attention. These two little quiltlets salute you, California poppies! I was inspired to try working very small and use some of my scraps by a purchase I had made from the SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) Trunk Show a few months ago. I fell in love with and bought a little quilt made by Myania Moses called, Solace. On the back she wrote a haiku: "Scan the horizon / Smell salt water waves, grasses / Rustle in the wind." The subject draws me in, the colors calm me, and the texture is magnificent.

For my little quiltlets, which I am calling "landescapes," I pieced a simple background, then free-motion stitched various patterns and colors, laying down a scrap or two on top as I went. Lastly, I made French knot poppies in shades of orange, the bright color that they are. In the first one, I made the poppies on straight vertical stems. In the second, I slanted the stems, thinking about a poem I had written in 2014 called, "The Poppies Lean," that was published by Paper Nautilus, a literary publication that closed in 2023. The poem is not archived anywhere, so here it is:

The Poppies Lean

The poppies lean orange faces into
oncoming cars, whipping back on
elastic stems –
A transient breath between seasons –
an airplane tears across the moon.

The stems are angled in the second one to match the poem. Interesting to me is how a little French knot can have movement depending on the stitching around it.