anika mari

After completing the first round of sewn leaves, I kept collecting more leaves, and kept on sewing.

There are some great ginkgo trees near my house, and the leaves turn a bright cheery yellow. I collected a huge stack of them because each one is so unique that I couldn’t stop picking up the next one, and the next one, and the next one. Unfortunately as they age they tend to speckle with little indented brown spots, but the shape is still lovely.

I chose a dark blue thread for my first ginkgo leaf, but I think I went a little overboard with the stitching on the first leaf.

Were I to do it again, I would either work with the long, loose strands of thread that follow the grain of the veining or stitch around the edge of the leaf, but not both. I suppose I can consider it my sampler ginkgo.

For the next ginkgo leaf I only stitched along the curvy edge of the leaf. I chose black thread instead of dark blue for the bold contrast of black and yellow. I stitched across the entire leaf one way, and then stitched back, creating little “x”s all across the top edge.

My friend Nic suggested that I should try to sew words onto the leaves with the thread. I thought this was a great idea, and to try it out, I sewed an “o” onto a ginko leaf. Then I sewed a few more “o”s. Some worked out better than others. Actually I think the first and last “o”s were the best, but I didn’t do them in order from left to right, so you’ll have to decide which ones they are.

It was trickier than I thought to sew the “o”s. I got a technique down by the last one (I think the first one was beginner’s luck), so it’s not impossible, but I imagine it would take quite a bit of practice to figure out how to render each letter. The challenge with sewing leaves is that the surface of the leaf is not as forgiving as cloth, or other more traditional sewing materials. You can’t run the needle through the leaf too close to another hole in the surface, or more than likely the leaf will rip, ruining at least 2 stitches. When working on the small scale like this, it’s hard to hide a mistake like that. When making the “o”s, they would look a lot less round and just plain messy if I tore through a hole or two. Notice how funky the “o” that’s on the far right looks.

I swear I didn’t plan this out, but after I completed the last two leaves, I noticed I had an “x” leaf and and “o” leaf, and they look quite cute together.

Over the days that I was collecting leaves, a few days passed when I didn’t sew any of them. They started to dry out. One leaf in particular caught my attention because of the shape it was taking on as it dried. Along the center vein, the leaf was starting to protrude forward as the edges of the leaf were curling in toward the center. I immediately knew how I wanted to sew it.

I love the color and the pattern of the leaf, as well as the shape it created as it dried. The thread seems to be the force that influences the shape of the leaf, but in fact, the shape was already set, so the thread serves to draw the focus to that natural form.

The pattern formed by the thread on the underside of the leaf also emphasizes the pattern of the surface.

The feature that I noticed the most on the next sewn leaf were the veins that travel up and out toward the edges. The straight and sharply branching lines are a natural contrast to the smooth round shape of the leaf’s silhouette.

I sewed from the main vein up each of the boldest branching veins to the point where they again split and branched off. I also sewed over the smallest detectable veins that branched from the main vein until the point that they faded off.

On the back of the leaf, the thread formed an interesting pattern where some of the lines of the thread connect from the base of one branching line to the tip where a vein branches on the opposite side of the leaf.

The lines of thread that zig zag up the main vein of the leaf remind me of inch worms.

I had one very small green leaf that I thought was just so precious and really wanted to use for something. I liked the contrast of the bright green against a large maroon leaf, and decided to keep the stitching simple.

As the leaves dried, the delicate green leaf has curled in toward the center, but both leaves have held onto their vibrant colors so far.

One thing that I think is pretty neat is that all the leaves in this post besides the ginkgos are from the same plant. I have no idea what the plant is, but it was growing in the backyard of the place where I dog sat for a while.

A few weeks ago I packed my huge suitcase full of some clothes and my computer equipment and headed to a house off of Fremont Street on the the east side of Portland. I had to be there at 8am, so I was at the bus stop a little after 7am. I was rewarded with an amazingly clear sunrise.

I arrived at the house right on time, ready to start my 12 day stint as the dog sitter of Oslo, a cute Boston Terrier who suffers from separation anxiety, and also happened to be recovering from knee surgery. Because of this combination of truths, I would be spending most of my time at the house with the dog, keeping him calm and not letting him jump on anything. I was allowed to leave for short periods of time to go to the grocery store and such, but only if absolutely necessary.

Most of my outside time was spent with Oslo on our 3, 10 minute daily walks. He lives in a charming neighborhood that was vibrant with the changing autumn leaves during my stay. On one walk I picked up a few particularly striking, colorful maple leaves that I found scattered on the ground.

I had this funny idea in my head: wouldn’t it be satisfying to sew these leaves together somehow?

I put that funny little idea aside for a day, but on one of my brief outings to a store, I happened to come across and purchase a mini-sewing kit. That evening I sat there with my thread and my needle and my tiny pair of scissors and my pile of maple leaves and didn’t really know what to do. Since the leaves were already becoming brittle, I figured they’d be completely dried out by the next day. In the interest of doing something, I completed the most literal interpretation of my idea and simply sewed them together.

I did four little bunches of maple leaves like the one above. You can see the rest here.

The next day on my walk, I collected some other leaves of various shapes, sizes and colors.

It was sunny in late October in Portland, so I sat on the back porch in the sun with Oslo next to me as I sewed a leaf.

sewn leaf, front

sewn leaf, back

I really liked the heart shape of the leaf and didn’t want to obscure it in any way, so I decided to embellish the form of the leaf with soft pink thread. I sewed up the central vein of the leaf and then around the edges.

On another walk, I collected a few delicate roundish leaves. They were small and felt rather fragile, so I wasn’t sure if they’d hold up on their own to being sewn. Instead, I sewed them onto onto other leaves.

appliqued leaves, front

appliqued leaves, back

The small leaf did pretty well on the previous example, but when i sewed one to a maple leaf, it tore, as you can see on the left side of the small leaf in the following image. I don’t mind though. To me it represents the nature of the leaf and is how it responded to a foreign process. It speaks to the fragility of the material. It also teaches me to be really really gentle when I sew leaves.

appliqued maple leaf

Some leaves were definitely easier to sew than others. I found some varieties to be brittle even when they were still fresh and felt supple in my hands; they would tear with even the slightest bit of tension. A larger leaf from the same plant as the small round leaves in the previous photos seemed like a good candidate for sewing. It was soft and flexible and fairly thick. Once I started sewing, I realized that it was a difficult leaf. I ripped right through the edge a couple of times, even when I thought I was being careful.

green leaf, red thread

Again, I don’t mind the imperfection. In fact here, I almost prefer it. It’s the imperfections that often make a piece unique. I love the process of making art, and ripping or breaking things is sometimes an important part of the process. It’s how I learn to perfect and adjust my technique.

Unfortunately I didn’t have a camera with me while I was with Oslo, so I didn’t get the chance to photograph the sewn leaves when they were first completed. As they dried, their shapes changed quite a bit as they shrank and curled. The red thread in the previous photo was completely taught when first sewn, and as the leaf shrank, the thread loosened and took on a new form of its own, encircling the the edge of the leaf, but not restricting it.

Surprisingly, all the leaves held onto their vibrant colors.

When I got back to my apartment, I decided to finally photograph the dried leaves. I improvised a mini photo studio, taking advantage of the diffused natural light of the overcast sky.

mini photo studio

When I first started taking the photographs, I focused my efforts on the fronts of the leaves. As I flipped them over to document the undersides, I realized that the backs were sometimes just as interesting, if not more so than the fronts.

back of leaves, gray green

back of leaves, red and yellow

I’ve sewn a few more leaves since taking these photos, and the process and style is evolving. I tried keeping leaves in bags in the fridge, but they tend to start to decompose after a few days, so I will continue to explore this method until the trees outside are bare.

There are a bunch more photos of all the leaves I sewed while I was hanging out with Olso here.