That was the question I asked myself when I decided to do this project. Because the cottage is where all the action takes place - and it's in a forest. I didn't want to have a painted forest necessarily because of the secret technique I'm going to be trying with this piece (don't worry, you'll see it when I get to it!) - but before we get to that, I decided I needed a fairly textural first layer.




You can see once again that I traced the big tree that goes behind the cottage to make a pattern.

But as for that forest - I decided that a fabric that did most of the work for me (without actually being a print of a forest!) was the way to go.




Ta da! Hiding in my stash, I had some scraps of silk brocade. And what I LOVE about this fabric is that when you initially look at that fabric, you might think "What the heck will I do with that?" But look! Here it is pieced together carefully (I thought it important that a lot of those blues and blue-ish green bits lived together closely for my dark-ish forest) - it turns out it's really the perfect background for this piece when lightly quilted.



Here's where we're heading by the way... once this background is finished, there will be a little stone path leading to the cottage, the cottage itself, a fire, my little animals with their instruments, and of course, one more tree.

You can see by my blurry notes, that I didn't fill in the whole sketch - it was just meant as a guide - mostly for pattern pieces.

By the way, if you're not familiar with The Musicians of Bremen - you can read the story here.

See you Friday for some more cottage in the woods goodness!