Final Exquisite-ness

Imagine how surprised I was to receive my completed Exquisite Corpse piece already! Why I'm still working on one more. This round really wrapped up quickly and we're already moving onto round 2. Carolyn didn't bother to cover hers (lower left) since she was sending it directly to me. That was ok with me, one less square to carefully remove in order to see the secret surprises underneath! It was kind of nerve wracking taking the basting stitches out on the covering squares on the top and back, as I didn't want to undo any real stitching.

Here's a shot of the whole thing uncovered. My first impression is that it is not too cohesive as a whole, but I like each square very much on its own. It is now pinned up on my design wall where I am contemplating what to do with it, should I try to integrate the squares together, or add interior and exterior borders, or??

This is the square that I started off the piece with. My theme was "what is your definition of a weed?" I had some beads, hand-dyed and commercial cottons, recycled flannel, silk waste/wool fiber, painted cotton batting, and faux snake skin. Stitching was done with metallic and rayon threads.
Nellie's square is a lovely realistic composition of weeds, with hand quilting all over seed stitch, black outline stitching, the whole thing overlaid with a dark green tuelle netting. Her weed images are from a flower pounding of real weeds she found in Colorado. The ground in the foreground is a crayon rubbing from a cut tree, and the sky is painted.

Susan's square, the words say"weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them - A.A. Milne, Eeyore from Winne the Pooh". A central stamped image of a thistle, embellished with stitching and beads, surrounded by multicolored yarn and paper butterfly on top in the corner.
Vero's square which has a lace background, silk squares appliqued on top with leafy/weedy shapes of silk and something sparkly, appliqued on top with metallic thread.

Arlee's square, she explains it on the Exquisite Corpse blog. The words from one of her own poems, say "we are not weeds in someone's garden~we are the flowers of Eden". Hers is really dimensional with a painted background, some beads, netting , purple organza central flower emphasized with cutwork, an artificial leaf reworked, wire wrapped in fabric and net. I like how there are moveable pieces coming off the edges onto the other squares, I'll have to decide how to work those into the adjacent spaces.

Carolyn's square, the words say: "enormous ugly garden vision", five squares of fabric, free motion quilted, black rick rack, magnetic words applied with clear tape.
And just for fun, a picture of the back of the whole thing, just because it is fun to see what is going on "backstage". You can see the sharpie marker outlines of the squares, some signatures, some paint peeking through and lots of quilting and threads.

This has been a great project to be involved in and I'm really looking forward to trying out the second round. I'll show you the rest of the squares I worked as the originating artists receive their completed pieces.