Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Tracing Trees

Earlier this week I finished the second of the minis I made as part of the Master Class theme of "Mood"

EB agreed with us, Gentle Readers, about the 'Becalmed' piece she preferred:

Agree entirely the second one is much more interesting...one can sit on the seat and enjoy the distant view...I would make sure the white carries right through to the right hand side even though it's just a speck...and probably not quite so lumpy...sand wouldn't be I don't think, unless it was dunes and they might be much bigger.  Decide what you want to draw attention to - at present the highest value contrast is the sand and the grass...and that might not be what you intend....
very nice little image with the dominant blue green...very calm and restful.
So I created a finished piece, thus:

Becalmed (C) 2015

For my "blocked" version of the bird-feeder piece, I described my process -- tracing on laminate and auditioning fabric.  This was EB's feedback:

Thank you for showing us your process...it give you a great idea of how the finished piece would look - of course it wouldn't be so easy with a bigger piece!   As long as you get that lovely black outline all stitched on the finished piece just like it is in the middle photo on the laminate I think it will work really well.
The bird feeder makes a focal point and the little birds are active all around - put one or two above the large branch as well as below to help balance out the interest...and you could also have some seeds that have fallen and birds that like to peck up from the ground down there.  Pretty!!!  I think these little postcard vignettes will sell really well....
I'm not sure to what she's referring by "that lovely black outline"...I did stitch in the branches and stitch on the tree trunk, but no outlining in the finished piece, so we'll see what she has to say about that!


Autumn Lunch (C) 2015

I confess I have my reservations about this one.  It borders on "cute"...but then again, as I told EB when I sent it to her, I was aiming for "calm delight", so I suppose I managed it.  I auditioned petite beads for the berries on the tree but they seemed too large compared to the leaves, so I let it go.  Ditto for the idea of French knots.

I've now turned my attention to wintry minis, two of which are to go along with the 'calm' pieces to the same gallery in Ponoka.

I began by tracing trees onto paper-backed fusible web.  Having the templates drawn out on clear plastic -- off-cuts from the laminating machine at my daughter's office -- works a treat for this, as I have to do it the reverse of how I want the tree to look in the picture:



Once transferred to my chosen fabric, I had to cut these out.  The two large trunks were a piece of cake, but the evergreen took a bit more doing:

The evergreen before cutting


Close-up of cutting the bottom edge

And here's the three, sandwiched and ready for quilting, thread painting and embellishment.


Shown with photo inspirations (left)

The two large tree trunks will sport a bird house, snow, more branches and berries -- they reprise "Gone South" and/or "See You in the Spring" from a year or two ago.  The evergreen has been adapted from "Sailor Take Warning" and/or "Sailor's Delight" and will have another tree -- deciduous, bare of leaves -- next to it and some snow on its branches.

And so...to bed.  Tomorrow is a day at The Shop; work will resume in earnest to finish these Friday and/or Saturday for Monday delivery.

Meanwhile...I'm linking to WIP Wednesday over on The Needle and Thread Network.  Do drop over and see who else is there!


3 comments:

elle said...

These are a delight, Margaret!

Judy Warner said...

I think all the effort for cutting out the fir tree was well worth it, Margaret. And, I love the background that you have chosen. You sure are being productive! Someday will you consider doing a show of all your miniatures. They are really inspiring!

Jo Ferguson said...

They're all wonderful. I think my favourite might be the picnic table. I'm always fascinated with EB's comments and thanks for sharing some of your process. It's inspiring.