In Part 7 of the series about Summertime, I share photos and videos documenting the process of making the raspberry plants. So far, I’ve written an overview of the piece, Part 1 – Tree Trunks, Part 2 – Tree Houses, Part 3 – leaves, stems & branches, Part 4 – Baltimore Oriole (body), Part 5 – Baltimore oriole (head and feet), Part 6 – rose vine, Part 8 – stitching flora, and Part 9 – moss, sky and stone wall.

See the Four Seasons Series and dozens of other works in my exhibition, To Every Season: Works by Salley Mavor at the New England Quilt Museum, Sept. 9 – Dec. 31, 2025.The show includes recent work, as well as rarely seen early pieces on loan from private collections.

RASPBERRIES
The idea to add raspberries came late in the process, months after I’d begun stitching and constructing the piece. I was inspired by our new raspberry patch, which was producing the most succulent fruit I’d ever grown. The raspberries practically begged to be featured in the summer scene! My original design included flowers, but I was much more excited about making raspberries.

Now came the fun part, where I examined raspberries, both real and in photos, imagining how to replicate them with stitching and found objects. I searched through my stash and found some frosted glass beads that were just the right shade of reddish pink. The goal wasn’t to reproduce exact copies, but to make the imitation raspberries look even more scrumptious than real ones. The following video demonstrates how I made the felt core, sewed on the beads, and wrapped the stem with embroidery floss.

My supply of beads was limited, so I conserved them by covering just the top and sides of the felt core, leaving a bare back that could more easily be sewn to the background fabric. When I ran out of red beads, I used yellow ones to make more raspberries.

RASPBERRY LEAVES
Looking closely, I noticed that raspberry leaves were quite complex, with fine saw-like teeth that would be hard to replicate in felt. I ended up making a stylized version that was as pointy as I could get.

The following video shows how I sewed wire around the outside edge and embroidered veins on a felt raspberry leaf.

Once there were enough berries and leaves, I linked them together with wire branches. Then, I covered the wire with embroidery floss.

This video shows how I twisted Parawire to make stems and branches and then wrapped the wire with embroidery floss.

This video shows how I covered the thicker bottom branches with a strip of brown felt.

This project is a clear example of the importance of flexibility in my working process. There’s a reason that I steer away from textiles and needlework that involve grids, graphs or patterns. In the beginning, I’m not so certain about how my art is going to develop. Sure, I start with a basic design and structure, but I like to keep a door open for change. In this case, raspberries showed up.

Stay tuned for Part 8, where I’ll share photos and videos documenting the process of stitching flora in Summertime.

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