Treasures by Sheila Ary of DeKalb, Illinois

This was an early attempt to combine interpretation of natural objects, made using needle and thread, with some real natural objects. I gave myself the challenge of finding what I could convincingly recreate with my needle. The flowers, all stitched, are Purple Coneflower, Black-Eyed Susan, Thistle, and Queen Anne’s Lace. The Blue Jay feather is stitched, as are two of the shells, the autumn leaf, and the crab under the driftwood. The driftwood I picked up in New Zealand, so it is a very personal treasure. The natural world has been important to me from childhood, when my father taught us to really look at what we were seeing outdoors, to love it, and to want to know more about it. It is still a source of awe, inspiration, comfort and delight. As always with my work I had an idea to begin with, but it grew and changed as I worked with it.