I made this punch needle piece as a gift for a friend. Using a hoop with a diameter of two feet, this is the largest punch needle piece I have ever made. I based the work off of a reference photo of an actual flower bouquet (shown below).

Punch needle is an art form that typically consists of the use of yarn, monks cloth (a fabric made up of loosely woven strands that create a grid), the punch needle itself (a tool with a sharp end through which the yarn is thread), and an embroidery hoop. The punch needle is poked through the monks cloth, which is held taught by the embroidery hoop, repeatedly, leaving a loop of yarn through the other side of the fabric, which has the perfect tension to allow the tool to punch through while also catching the loop of yarn and keeping it in place.

The creation process for this piece consisted of creating a sketch of the original piece, determining my color palette and purchasing skeins of yarn that aligned with my intentions of making a very bright, colorful piece that reflected the original bouquet, drawing the piece out on the monks cloth, and then using the punch needle to individually poke each point of color from the back until the final product was reached.

In the end, the culmination of the many individual, closely placed, punches of yarn through the cloth results in a solid layer of yarn depicting the goal image.

This project serves as an art piece, being hung on the wall to bring color into a space.