TextileArtist.org‘s third workshop was hosted by Susie Vickory. Her workshop brought repurposing up to the forefront: select plastic garbage and turn it into an art piece rather than just adding it to the landfills of waste.

I admit that I was not keen on this project and I didn’t put as much effort into it as I might have. Creatively, I simply followed her guidelines for the shape of a flower. I didn’t even bother taking great photos. My bad.

To make this piece, I used craft acrylic felt for the groundcloth – I found it “open weave” enough to work for stitching. The red portion is a rolled up and then splayed out bit of netting from a bag of clementines. The light green came off a plastic shopping bag from a pet store, and the dark green and white came from a Menard’s plastic shopping bag. The teal plastic came from air sacs used to protect server equipment in shipping (I stole them from Boy’s garbage at the office).

I will rarely shirk away from trying a new technique so I did enjoy learning that I actually do not enjoy stitching with plastic. What is pleasant, though, is how much Boy loved this concept! He loved calling it “garbage art” and so now it resides in his office.