Monday, October 27, 2014

Birches

I love it when I'm in the midst of an intriguing piece. My mind travels there in quiet times and puzzles out how I might do the the next steps. I stray into the studio from time to time, consulting my reference photos, pulling out pieces of fabric. When I'm satisfied I'm on track, I can leave and perhaps settle in to bed and sleep.

And so, I approached the studio today already knowing what I would do next. I had rearranged the birch trees last night. Today, I ironed them in place (fusible on back) and added shadows and markings with paint.


After laying out the foreground foliage, I decided that I needed two more trees.


The plain white makes them jump forward but that will change with the application of paint for the shading.


In the meantime while the paint dried, I cut a few more leaves and hooped them for stitching. Eventually I decided not to use the orange ones, choosing a different red.

 I free motion stitched, ironed away the Saran and laid out all the pieces that I'd assembled just to see how it's going.


The rose hips are not at all in their final place. I will remove them to do all the background stitching first. Birch trees and branches. White, black and grey threads.

Enough for today. Now for some tea and a bit of knitting.

Tuesday is usually a studio day but I may do some quilt shop visits with friends. One can always use a bit of fabric. Also, I'm thinking of making new curtains for the spare bedroom which hubby and I were cleaning out yesterday.

Happy Monday!

3 comments:

Mystic Quilter said...

Enjoying watching the progress of the Birch trees piece, and hope you had a good visit to the quilt shops - I agree, one can always use a bit of fabric!

Marjorie's Busy Corner said...

this is so neat Holly!! I love seeing how you do this.

What Comes Next? said...

I am enjoying watching your process on this one - those trees look so fabulous!