Done (well, almost)

All the stitching is done on the birch/aspen quilt now. And I have judged it finished. Except for the binding, of course, which I need to address soon. It’s really hard to show what this thing actually looks like in pictures. It never looks like it does in real life.

So in the final analysis, the way I made it is supposed to divide the piece’s aspects in two.  The applique and piecing depicts the objects within the scene (hills, the patches of flowers, sky, lake, 2 kinds of trees) and the embroidery depicts the movement of the scene – the breeze, the leaves twirling down, the motion of waves on the shore.

The problem with the last part, the binding, is that I don’t know what fabric to use. The front and back pieces were sample pieces, I don’t have any more. I’m pretty sure that using fabric from the trees is a bad idea, and even the other solid cottons probably won’t work well because the backing fabric is a looser and thicker weave than the cotton. I think it would come out all wrong.  This is one of those times where I wonder where my forethought was, but that’s kind of the problem with this work.  It’s intended to be spontaneous, to foster that sort of creativity, and indeed if it weren’t I wouldn’t bother.  But then I run into a problem like this binding thing.

That’s the sky embroidery, it’s supposed to be a lazy breeze.

Anyway, if any of you have ideas about what will look appropriate, tell me!  I’m up for all sorts of suggestions.  I will make some sort of decision within the week. All that’s left really is to iron it, and bind it off, and add a hanging strip. And that will be that!  Seems funny the end is so near, after working on it off an on over these last months.

The final look of the waves on the shore of the lake. You did know that was a lake below the hill of trees?

I have two more quilting projects in the works when this is done. One is a jacket and the other one is based on a fairy tale.  The former is pretty planned out, the second is in its initial sketch details.  Meanwhile, I’ll leave you with a couple of photos of the crochet jewelry piece I’m experimenting on. It’s made of three colors of thread and the base is sport-weight yarn. It makes nifty shapes. It also takes forever to do this and is fairly hard on the fingers.  But no matter.  It’s definitely interesting.

Birches Update

I’ve been plugging along on the quilting-embroidery for the birches quilt.  Which I realize at this point should be named Birches/Aspens, because the brown pattern is the paper bark birches and the gold is aspens.  I’ve been trying to find a picture of the scene that really inspired this quilt.  It’s hard because the scene is from my life.  My brother once lived in a grove of aspens on the side of a mountain, and there were birches there also.  The rustle and chime of the leaves, the starkness of the trunks during a snowy winter, the curling white of the bark all remind me of the chilly, sunny peace of that place.

This is the current state of the quilt. The embroidery is free-form, and hard to see intentionally, it’s of air. It’s of leaves falling down from the trees, doing that twirling and falling thing the leaves do, and eventually settling in some random spot on the hills. The wind’s colors are silver and blues, while the leaves will be various colors of gold.

Of course, the other part is to just sandwich the pieces together, and that did just fine for that. Needs more, though. I was full of it when I said it would take just one week. That was a really poor estimation. I have a lot of leaves to put on now, some on the ground, and a few left on the branches, the very last ones of fall. It’s fun though. It’s laborious and time-consuming, but then I guess it wouldn’t be worth it if it weren’t.

That’s the back of it. It’s hard to see the front, it’s a lot of texture, but the back shows what I just did. I think all that texture is lovely.

I’ll be starting the leaves tonight. Not sure how I’m going to do them yet, but birch and aspen leaves are fairly simple. I was thinking of outlines, we’ll see how that goes, but maybe I’ll have to fill them in a bit. We’ll see!

Projects I Wish I Had Time to Do

I love my feed reader, I really do. But then I start going through things and I uncover a wealth of things I would like to do … if only i had the time. Which is always, and never. These are some of the recent things, a bit of cleaning out the Halloween wish list as well. Let’s ignore the fact that I can’t actually do all these things, I must settle for admiring the creative and occasionally kooky talents of others.

Home is where the game controller is cross stitch pattern. [Feeling Stitchy] This really does apply to my home. Maybe a GBA instead?

The brilliant Rubitone concept by industrial designer [Ignacio Pilotto]  I love creative ways to display color gradation … Pantone colors make my eyes cross, though.

A knitted Ash from Bruce Campbell vs Army of Darkness by [the Adventures of Cakeyvoice] –”This is my boomstick!”  I’m quite fond of Mr. Campbell and Army of Darkness, myself.

Crocheted Ring Bracelet from contributor [Diane Gilleland] on Craft Stylish.

Halloween Ribbon Wreath from [the Long Thread]  This is one of those things that’s so straightforward my brain couldn’t possibly come up with it.  I might do this for the holidays.

A colorful crocheted Hexagon Granny Blanket from [Attic24] – I’d love to do a hexagon afghan (but only after I finish the ones in progress, eh?)