Magnolia Seeds

I will try to get some pictures, but in my continuing obsession with all things magnolia, I spent some time yesterday examining the bright red seed pods coming out of their cones on the magnolia trees at the elementary school.  They had white strings attached to them.  I’d never noticed that before.  I’d also never seen the pods close up just before the seeds emerged.  Each seed window was turning pink and bulging out.  Then two fronds parted and the seed poked out.  It looked to me like a row of dancers with their hands clasped above their heads – with the seeds being the dancer’s heads peeking out from the arms.  I think I’d like to do a small series of quilts of the magnolia parts (leaf, bloom, seed pod) and which ever parts are not in the piecing will be the motif in the quilting.  (E.g. the leaf quilt will have seed pods and blooms in the quilting.)  I’d also like to do a small series of the phases – follow the bloom from tight bud through opening and into burned up, shriveled mess.  And of course I want to do a GREAT BIG magnolia blossom piece – but I want it to be monochromatic in purple (or magenta or blue).  Still thinking.  Still sketching.  Still writing.  Still observing.  No quilting, cutting, or piecing.  Sometimes my percolation time is long indeed.