The 3D Appeal of Stumpwork

Posted on April 12, 2026 by Salley Mavor

Raised work on the lid of the embroidered casket, Martha Edlin, 1671, England.
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Fifty years ago, an encounter with an unusual and historical style of embroidery steered the course of my artistic development, leading the way to a career in children’s books. This is the story of how it happened:

Salley Mavor at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1975

In the mid-1970s, during those early impressionable years in art school when I was searching for inspiration, I came across a distinctive 17^th century English raised embroidery technique known as stumpwork. Although I cannot recall the circumstances that led me to discover a book with photographs of this oddly named type of needlework, I clearly remember the impact it had on me.

Embroidered casket, Martha Edlin, 1671, England. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

The elaborately embroidered panels and padded keepsake boxes created over three centuries ago piqued my curiosity more than any other form of art I had encountered up to that point. It was not just their remarkable technical skill that drew me in; these pieces contained sculptural and narrative qualities that completely blew me away. This introduction to stumpwork marked a major turning point in my artistic growth, as embroidery would before long turn from a sporadic interest into the full-blown obsession it is today.

This stumpwork casket is in a collection of embroideries at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. It was made by Martha Eldin in 1671, when she was just 11 years old! The V & A’s website shares this bit of history about Martha’s casket: “Caskets like Martha’s were produced in England between about 1650 and 1695. The decorative needlework panels were worked by young girls as part of their needlework education.”

In 1975, just before discovering stumpwork, I embroidered Old World Musicians for an illustration class. At the time, I was already interested in pictorial subjects and enjoyed experimenting with various textural embellishments in my work. However, seeing examples of stumpwork opened my eyes even further to the creative opportunities within needlework.

What intrigued me most about stumpwork was that it showed how embroidery could literally rise above the surface and add depth to otherwise flat, traditional textiles. By elevating certain components and creating a dramatic interplay of light and shadow, I realized that needlework could become far more engaging than mere decoration. It could be transformed into an immersive visual experience, complete with objects shaped like animals, human figures, and other familiar elements that invite the viewer to take a closer look.

Fascinated by the three-dimensional aspect of stumpwork and its storytelling potential, I was eager to adapt the concept in a way that matched my own artistic style and abilities. Unlike other textile processes with pre-planned designs or grids—essentially functioning as color-by-number projects—stumpwork allowed ample wiggle room to make changes as I worked. This freedom to manipulate and rearrange parts midstream made this method especially appealing to me, as I typically began with a simple sketch and refined my work as I progressed.

Illustration from the picture book, Mary Had a Little Lamb, 1995, Salley Mavor.

While my artwork was inspired by stumpwork, my techniques, materials, subject matter, and presentation were entirely different. Even if I could have found instructional materials for learning traditional techniques from the 17^th century, I doubt I would have had the tolerance to follow the patterns and directions as prescribed. My creative process has always been more self-guided, involving a lot of experimentation until I discover something that works. When asked what my medium was called, I hesitated to use the term “stumpwork”, concerned that it sounded too homely. I soon labeled my new work ”fabric relief”, a name that I thought more accurately described my art.

In the fifty years since I first encountered stumpwork, this distinctive form of embroidery has undergone an extraordinary revival. Its renewed popularity has led to numerous books, instructional classes, and online tutorials. For those eager to explore the many facets of stumpwork, I highly recommend Mary Corbet’s Needle ‘n Thread, which offers book reviews and information on various techniques.

At this early stage of my artistic evolution, I was primarily concerned with finding ways to bring my imagination to life, oblivious to what might be required to take it to the next step professionally. I wasn’t thinking about the realities of photographing and reproducing three-dimensional illustrations. It was only years later, as I began to seriously contemplate illustrating picture books, that I recognized the practical advantages of working in bas-relief rather than sculpture in the round. From both a lighting and focusing perspective, positioning all characters, props, and scenery on a single plane with a shallow depth of field simplifies the composition and makes it much easier to photograph. To see a list of my books, please visit this page.

The summer after graduating from RISD in 1978, I went on a pilgrimage to London to see the Victoria and Albert Museum’s collection of stumpwork in person. Considering the impact that this historical artform has had on the course of my career, I will forever be grateful to the English women and girls of the 1600s who created these unique and charming pieces. Because these works were treasured and safeguarded for more than three hundred years, we are able to be inspired by their beauty and ingenuity today.

Salley Mavor in 2021, finishing Mossy Glen, the spring scene in her series of seasonal landscapes.

To keep up with new posts, please subscribe to this blog. Your contact info will not be sold or shared. If you’d like to see more frequent photos tracking the projects in my studio, please follow me on Facebook, Instagram and BlueSky.

Baby Banner – Laurel

Posted on March 22, 2026 by Salley Mavor

For the past 20 years or so, I’ve made personalized gifts for friends and family to commemorate special events like weddings and births. These gifts take the form of felt banners or cake toppers. The embellished felt banners combine two of my favorite things, hand embroidery and cursive handwriting. In this post, I share a behind the scenes look at the process of making a baby banner for Laurel, who was born earlier this year. You can see posts about this and other banners by scrolling through the archives here. See wedding cake toppers here.

A BANNER FOR LAUREL
Three days into the new year, our good friends welcomed a baby girl into the world. I couldn’t wait to make a banner for little Laurel. With a nature inspired name like that, it would have to feature a laurel leaf!

WRAPPING WIRE LETTERS
After choosing a color scheme and picking out pieces of felt and thread, I wrote out Laurel’s name in cursive handwriting with a pencil on paper. Fortunately, her name could be written in one continuous line, which doesn’t always happen. I then wrapped a length of DMC memory thread (a kind of wire) with 3 strands of variegated embroidery floss (see video below). Using the drawing as a template, I bent the wire to form her name and stitched the letters together where they touched.

In the following video, I demonstrate wrapping DMC memory thread with 3 strands of embroidery floss to create letters for Laurel’s banner. Memory thread is wire coated with a fibrous material which is easier to grab onto than slippery wire. Wrapping the wire smoothly and evenly takes a lot of practice, so be patient. The wire ends are bent over and wrapped, so that no raw thread ends are hanging out. If you’ve learned to wrap arms and legs for the wee folk dolls in my how-to book, Felt Wee Folk, you’ve got a jump start on mastering this technique.

LAUREL LEAF
Adding a horticultural element to the banner was fun! I cut a laurel leaf shape out of wool felt and edged it with blanket stitching. Then I stitched wire around the outside edge of the leaf for stability. Jewelry wire works for this purpose, but for this project, I used some memory thread that was readily available on my table.

In the following video, you can see how I stitched memory thread (or wire) around the outside edges of the leaf. Then I created veins with wire and chain stitching.

EMBELLISHING FELT BORDERS
I love embellishing with blanket stitching, especially with variegated thread. It’s a simple and effective way to create an edge that’s both soft and assertive, while also displaying a handmade quality. For me, it’s important to show that a human being made it, not a machine. For this banner, I created layers of felt pieces, which I blanket stitched with pima cotton (Watercolours by Caron).

For these banners, I’ve routinely used variegated floss to wrap the wire that forms the lettering. I like how the changing shades look lively and naturalistic compared to plain solid colors.

I sewed all of the letters and numbers to the pieces of felt.

The bottom of the banner has three scalloped flaps that I embroidered with chained stitched spirals. At the bottom points, I sewed on some bone buttons that have been waiting a long time for the just the right purpose.

I searched through my stash to find 2 beads to dangle on either side of the hanging bar at the top up the banner.

The wooden hanging bar is actually an old weather-beaten sail batten that I found washed up on a local beach. I braided cord to make a strap and drilled holes in the stick big enough to thread cord through. And voila, the banner is finished and ready to display!

Summertime: Part 8 – stitching flora

Posted on June 1, 2025 by Salley Mavor

Part 8 in the series of posts about making my piece Summertime includes photos and videos documenting the process of stitching flora. For a more comprehensive understanding of my process, I encourage you to explore other posts in this series: Overview of the piece, Part 1 – Tree Trunks, Part 2 – Tree Houses, Part 3 – leaves, stems and branches, Part 4 – Baltimore Oriole (body), Part 5 – Baltimore Oriole (head and feet), Part 6 – rose vine, Part 7 – raspberry plants, Part 8 – stitching flora, Part 9 – moss, sky and stone wall, and Part 10 – wee folk.

Summertime is the summer scene in a series of four seasonal landscapes that capture the wonder and magic of the natural world. Posters, note cards, prints, bookmarks, and jigsaw puzzles of Summertime and the other scenes in the series (Frosty Morning, Mossy Glen and Harvest Time) are available in my Etsy Shop.

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.

Towards the end of the project, after months of constructing most of the 3-dimensional parts of the scene, I was ready to zero in and add embroidered leaves and flowers where they were needed. In the following video, you can see how I spread out on different work tables in my studio. Every horizontal surface was full of materials and tools, as well as the bits and pieces I’d finished making.

To do the stitching, I require very few things – a piece of felt, a needle, thread, and a thimble. And good lighting, of course. And closeup glasses. No hoop, no cumbersome magnifying equipment and no fancy needles or scissors.

It was almost impossible to draw markings on this fuzzy wool felt, even with chalk. So, I mostly worked freehand and removed the stitched red guide lines later in the process. I used DMC cotton flower thread, which is thicker and bolder than embroidery floss. In this video, watch how I chain-stitched leaves and added Parawire stems on top.

Chain-stitching these leaf shapes was as soothing as filling in a coloring book.

I added patches of black-eyed susans to open areas of blue sky below the raspberries and above the stone wall (coming in part 9).

In other open areas, I chain-stitched blades of grass, dotted with little French knot flowers.

I was nearing the end of the project, which meant that it was time to tackle the border. I got out my stash of upholstery fabric and tried out different color combinations. Red and gold popped out at me; they contrasted with the blue sky and brought out the color of the raspberries. I padded the wooden stretchers with cotton quilt batting and sewed the upholstery fabric around the frame, which created a shallow box to fill with all of the parts.

Stay tuned for Part 9, where I’ll share photos and videos documenting the process of stitching moss and the sky, and building the stone wall in Summertime.

Summertime: Part 7 – raspberry plants

Posted on May 5, 2025 by Salley Mavor

Part 7 in the series of posts about making my piece Summertime features photos and videos documenting the process of creating 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.

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.

Summertime: Part 6 – rose vine

Posted on March 16, 2025 by Salley Mavor

Part 6 in the series of posts about making my piece Summertime features photos and videos documenting the process of creating the rose vine.

For a more comprehensive understanding of my process, I encourage you to explore other posts in this series: Overview of the piece, Part 1 – Tree Trunks, Part 2 – Tree Houses, Part 3 – leaves, stems and branches, Part 4 – Baltimore Oriole (body), Part 5 – Baltimore Oriole (head and feet), Part 6 – rose vine, Part 7 – raspberry plants, Part 8 – stitching flora, Part 9 – moss, sky and stone wall, and Part 10 – wee folk.

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.

ROSES
I learned how to make basic felt roses like these years ago from Mimi Kirchner’s blog. Mimi’s tutorial is available here. I love how deceptively simple the process is, starting with a circle of felt and folding it like origami to make a rose shape. Watch the following video to see how I finished off the raw felt edges with blanket stitching and folded the circle to make a rose.

Felt Rose

LEAVES
To cut out the sharp-toothed edge around the rose leaves, I used pinking shears. The following video shows how I stitched wire around the outside of a felt leaf and embroidered its stem and veins.

Felt Rose Leaf

I twisted wire to make a central vine and added the roses, leaves, thorns, and curly tendrils. Besides felt and embroidery floss, the most common material in my artwork is wire. Felt alone is too floppy and needs structural supports. I used Parawire in a range of gauges, from 24 to 32, to build up the thickness and strength I wanted.

The last step was disguising the shiny metallic wire with embroidery floss. Part 3 in this series includes videos of wrapping wire stems and branches on other foliage in the Summertime piece. I wound 1 or 2 strands of floss around and around the stems until the surface was evenly covered. It was a bit tricky to make the thorns look sharp!

Stay tuned for Part 7, where I’ll share photos and videos documenting the process of making the raspberry plants in Summertime. To keep up with new posts, please subscribe to this blog. Your contact info will not be sold or shared. If you’d like to see more frequent photos tracking the projects in my studio, please follow me on Facebook, Instagram and BlueSky.

tiny shoes are big

Posted on February 23, 2025 by Salley Mavor

What is it about tiny shoes? There’s something irresistible about small scale footwear, whether it’s baby booties or doll shoes. Every time I post a photo with miniature shoes, there’s a huge response. So, I thought I’d share a selection of little slippers, boots and even high-heeled shoes I’ve made that range from precious to provocative (with a surprise guest near the end of the post).

Many of the illustrations in my picture book, MY BED, show pairs of shoes that were put aside at bedtime, including the slippers above and the hiking boots below.

When making the Japanese interior scene for MY BED, I tried hard to convey a spare and ordered aesthetic, but couldn’t help myself from placing 2 pairs of slippers off to the side of the tatami mat. I thought that the shoes would break up the geometric blocks and give the space a lived in appearance. I’ve since learned that I don’t have a proper grasp of Japanese culture, because leaving one’s shoes out like that is a big no no! One follower pointed out that Japanese children would be spanked for being so careless. I was further corrected when the slippers were photoshopped out of the illustration in the Japanese edition of the book!

Early on, I made shoes out of old kid leather gloves that I painted brown, like the ones in this kitchen scene from Mary Had a Little Lamb. The kid leather was thin and pliable enough to cut with scissors and sew with a needle and thread.

For the past 25 years or so, I’ve made shoes out of wool felt, which is much more forgiving than leather. For the rhyme, “Cobbler, cobbler, mend my shoe”, in Pocketful of Posies, I made felt boots, a leather work apron, and a wooden shoe sign, which I cut out with a jig saw.

The different nursery rhyme characters in Pocketful of Posies wear over 100 shoes, in varying colors and sizes. There’s Little Bo Peep who lost her sheep…

the children playing Ring Around the Roses…

and the Crooked Man who walked a crooked mile in his hiking boots.

An old watch strap buckle came in handy for this shoe from “One, two, buckle my shoe”.

Does this shoe house look familiar? It was inspired by an LL Bean boot I found in the closet. Not only did the old woman who lived in a shoe have to feed all those children, she had to keep them all shod, too!

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe, from “Pocketful of Posies”

A few years ago, I made a pair of bigger than usual fairies to accommodate some large bur oak acorn caps from the Midwest. Because the Bur Oak fairies had nice big feet (1 1/4″), I could more easily cobble shoes for them. I made their slippers out of felt, with a bit of wire reinforcement to give them a pointy elfin look.

Most of the shoes I make are of the comfortable variety, but occasionally someone demands spike heels.

Like this pair of pink roach killers I made back in 2017, when Rob and I spent a year in the basement filming our stop-motion animation, Liberty and Justice: A Cautionary Tale in the Land of the Free. The film is just as relevant today as it was when it was released in 2018. In the photo below, the Melania character is getting a final fitting for her cameo appearance in the film.

Let’s push aside all that glitz and glamor and finish up with “Jumping Joan”, who’s wearing a pair of sensible brown shoes, which everyone wore to school when I was growing up.

Summertime: Part 5 – Baltimore Oriole (head and feet)

Posted on February 16, 2025 by Salley Mavor

Part 5 in the series of posts about making my piece Summertime features photos and videos documenting the process of creating the Baltimore Oriole’s head and feet.

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.

I wouldn’t call myself an avid bird watcher, but I do appreciate the subtle differences that make each species unique. For this piece, the trick was to capture the bird’s distinguishing features without being too scientific. To understand the nuances of an Oriole, I studied photos and made sketches, paying particular attention to the position, size and angle of its head, eyes and beak.

BEAK
I must have been so focused on making the bird’s hood and eye (it’s a glass bead) that I forgot to take photos of that part. So, let’s skip ahead to the beak. To make it pointy, I formed a wire extension and wrapped it with embroidery floss.

I articulated the shape of the beak with floss, stitching over and around, until it had a smooth and seamless appearance.

Watch this video to see how I stitched the beak. It even shows what the back looks like!

After the beak was finished, I embroidered black feathers with fly stitches on the neck and throat area.

I sewed the wing and tail (see Part 4) in place and got to work on making the Oriole’s feet.

FEET
I shaped the bird’s feet and legs with wire, twisting it around to form 4 toes – 1 short and 3 long. Then, I wrapped the wire with embroidery floss, winding the thread up and down until no shiny wire was exposed and the feet were the right thickness.

Watch this video to see how I constructed the legs and feet and attached them to the bird’s body.

Stay tuned for Part 6, where I’ll share photos and videos documenting the process of making the rose vine. If you want to receive email notices when I publish new posts, please subscribe to this blog using the form below.

Summertime: Part 4 – Baltimore Oriole (body)

Posted on February 2, 2025 by Salley Mavor

Part 4 in the series of posts about making my piece Summertime features photos and videos documenting the process of creating the Baltimore Oriole’s body, including its breast, wing and tail.

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.

Enchanting Threads: The Art of Salley Mavor at the Albany Institute of History and Art

BALTIMORE ORIOLE
I chose a male Baltimore Oriole for the summer scene mostly because of its flashy appearance. They also epitomize the season for me. Pairs of orioles are frequent visitors to our yard in early summer, when we lure them with orange halves and grape jelly. I hadn’t made a bird this size since Birds of Beebe Woods (2012), which you can get a glimpse of on the wall in the following video.

First, I looked at photos of orioles and made a simple drawing that showed its size and proper proportions. Then, I cut the basic shape out of acid-free matte board and padded it with thick felt (which is similar to how I made pins early in my career). Throughout the process of making the bird, I referred to photos, especially when selecting colors and stitches for the body, wing, and tail.

I wanted to make the bird realistic enough to be recognized as a species, but patterned and abstracted in a way that made it fun to stitch. It ended up being something between a stylized bird and a biological illustration.

BREAST
For the oriole’s distinctive orange breast, I embroidered different combinations of fly stitches that are reminiscent of Faire Isle patterns. It brought me back to a dozen years ago, when I stitched the crow’s breast in Birds of Beebe Woods.

I used cotton flower thread, which has a matte finish that’s different from the glossy sheen of cotton embroidery floss. DMC flower thread is no longer available, so if you’re interested, Dutch Treat Designs has some of the discontinued thread in stock.

Watch a Stitch Minute video of embroidering the oriole’s breast with fly stitches.

WING
I usually work freehand without marks, because it’s hard to draw on fuzzy wool felt. In this case, I was able to make chalk pencil lines on the black felt wing.

Watch a Stitch Minute video of embroidering the bird’s wing.

TAIL
So much of a bird’s personality comes through in the angle and pose of its tail. Doing the stitching was the easy part. Positioning the tail and attaching it to the body took more patience and perseverance.

Watch a Stitch Minute video of embroidering and attaching the bird’s tail.

Stay tuned for Part 5, where I’ll share photos and videos documenting the process of making the Baltimore Oriole’s head and feet. If you want to receive email notices when I publish new posts, please subscribe to this blog using the form below.

Harvest Time – Part 2 (turkey tail mushroom)

Posted on January 27, 2025 by Salley Mavor

In Part 2 in the series about making Harvest Time, I share photos, commentary and a stitch-minute video about creating the turkey tail mushroom overhanging the doorway in the stump. In the coming weeks and months, I will post more stories that focus on different aspects of the process of making the fall scene, including the toad stool mushroom, wee folk figures, tunnels, roots, stones and foliage of all kinds.
The overview introduces the Harvest Time piece.
Part 1 features moss making.
Part 2 is about making the turkey tail mushroom.
Part 3 shows the construction of felt leaves.
Part 4 gives a peek at embroidering the plants.
Part 5 is about making the toadstool mushroom
Part 6 shows the process of making the underground

Harvest Time is the fall scene in a series of seasonal landscapes that capture the wonder and magic of the natural world, both real and imagined. Harvest Time and the other scenes I’ve completed and written about, Summertime, Frosty Morning and Mossy Glen, are available as note cards and jigsaw puzzles in my shop here.

Harvest Time Puzzles are available in my Etsy shop.

Turkey tail mushrooms or shelf fungi are found all over the world. They usually grow on dead hardwood stumps and downed hardwood trunks or branches.

I love how Glen Carliss used shelf fungi for the roofs in “Glendell Towers”, which he made for The Fairy Houses of Highfield Hall, an outdoor exhibition that I curated in 2015. Glen told me that he’d been eyeing the mushrooms growing on trees along his road for years, imaging what to do with them.

I didn’t use actual mushrooms in Harvest Time, but I was inspired by their fanciful appearance. My photo search came up with multiple color combinations, from earthy hues to shades as garish as 1960’s fashion. I chose a more subdued mixture of fall colors for the mushroom roof.

To make the striped concentric pattern, I chain stitched rows and rows of different shades of green and orange DMC cotton flower thread to a piece of felt. It took two tries to get the shape and colors the way I wanted it.

In this Stitch Minute video, I demonstrate chain stitching the stripes and adding wire.

After we filmed it, I wasn’t happy with the overall shape and color combo, so I started over and made a new one that was more curvy and included orange and yellow.

I stitched wire around the outside edge and covered it with white embroidery floss.

Then I made a smaller mushroom and a really little one that looked like a pompom on top of a hat. It’s been a year since I started working on this piece, so my memory is a bit foggy. I can only guess at how I formed the layers into a roof shape and attached it to the driftwood. I do remember that the mushroom wasn’t very cooperative and I had to torture it into shape. Most likely, I glued felt to the wood and then sewed the mushroom to the felt.

During the process, I constantly measured the depth of the trunk to make sure that it would fit behind the glass when the finished piece was framed. After the mushroom roof was added, there was just enough clearance!

My use of found objects is mostly limited to individual items that are sewn in place and incorporated into embroidered scenes. This trunk was different because it was made up of several driftwood parts that created a fairly large mass that stuck out from the background. Its depth and breadth would determine how I created everything else in the landscape.

Now that the trunk was finished, I could start building the other parts of the scene, including the ground at its base.

Part 3 will show the process of making the felt and stitched foliage growing on the ground at the foot of the tree trunk.

Summertime: Part 3 – leaves, stems, and branches

Posted on January 9, 2025 by Salley Mavor

As promised, I’m picking up where we left off last year and continuing the series about Summertime, the fourth of my seasonal landscapes. Part 3 features photos and videos documenting the process of creating the leaves, stems, and branches.

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.

LEAVES
Some of the foliage in this piece are realistic interpretations, like the leaves on the rose vine and raspberry plants (which will be covered in future posts), but others are pure fantasy. I wanted the scene to look believable, without being completely true to life. It’s not biological illustration; I was more interested in creating a unique ecosystem where little people could live alongside birds and berries.

I made the leaves with 3 basic materials – wool felt, wire, and embroidery floss. The following Stitch Minute video demonstrates how to make a simple leaf, edged in wire.

Stitch Minute – leaf

STEMS
Wire is literally the backbone of my work. I use it as a structural framework to keep floppy materials (like felt) firm enough to exist in space, above the background fabric. In this piece, I used copper wire made by Parawire to edge the leaves and form their stems.

The trick is to cover all of the shiny metal with floss. It takes many passes around the wire to make a smooth surface.

This video shows how I wrapped the wire stems on the central tree in the Summertime scene.

For me, making curvy stems and bending them around is like doodling with wire. I’m never sure how a vine is going to grow and climb. This purple bush was calling out for something extra, so I made a curly vine to wrap around its trunk.

In this Stitch Minute video, you can see how I wrapped the curly vine, including its little corkscrew tendril.

BRANCHES
After years of developing ways of making tree branches, my preferred method these days is forming wire armatures and covering them with felt or embroidery floss. I usually embroider a textured “bark” pattern onto the felt before sewing it around the wire. Thicker tree trunks involve a different process, which I wrote about in Part 1.

In the following video, you can see how I stitched felt to cover the section that branches off into 3 separate wire limbs.

Stay tuned for Part 4 in this series, which will be about the Baltimore Oriole. If you want to receive email notices when I publish new posts, please subscribe to this blog using the form below.