Hairy Animals and Dead Tree Limbs

This fairy is made from the silk petals of a dogwood blossom. Until I went to graduate school in Northern California I had never seen a dogwood blossom. It sounded awful. I thought about hairy animals and dead tree limbs. They turned out to be such delicate little things, four long creamy white petals with a blush of light green at the center and at the very tip a little brown-colored notch. They were nestled in branches and fluttered in the wind.

When the artificial dogwood flowers went on sale I grabbed five or six branches and rooted around inside the plastic bin for loose pieces that had fallen off. You usually don't see cloth dogwood petals. Working with such long petals can make proportion a bit of a nightmare but it worked out in the end. I especially liked how her hair came out. You can see the light and dark shades of brown, a trademark which makes my little ones unique.