Birch tree class sample, The Wave

I've been busy organizing, sewing and packing things for my workshop on Monday. I've gotten the class sample as far as I would like it to be in order to show the different stages and to be able to do a little stitching as a demo as well.
The background has dark grey spots and branches added with fabric paint.

Shading and spots added with paint to the fused foreground trees.

Some free motion stitrchwork begun.

I'm almost ready. I confidently assured my students that they could do the trees in this method without 'artistic background'. I had a friend who is taking the class over for lunch and a preview to see what she thought. She's excited. Do you think you could do it?

Later this afternoon, I squeezed out a bit of time to do a little more thread painting on the Wave. I've only just begun. Also, I made some needle lace by free motion stitching tiny spirals onto stretched netting in a small hoop.

I've laid it on to see what it will look like, but there is much stitching to be done first.

In the detail, you can see some of the stitching so far.

For supper, I've thawed sole filets which I plan to bake in parchment packs along with some veggies. I like doing a bit of creative cooking, but sometimes it's hard to pull away from my art work to get it started.