When I first started making this, I told you it was another piece inspired by the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series.  If you know the story - it refers to the last scene at the end of A Storm Of Swords - it's called "Catelyn At the Riverside"

The white (weirwood) tree represents Catelyn, and the other trees cowering before her are of course, her foes.  If you haven't read the books; have at it - interpret this as you will, and tell me what *you* see.  I've already gotten "trees dancing in the moonlight" - and would love to know your take!

Have an awesome weekend everyone, I look forward to seeing you on Monday!


Oh - and, if you're not a regular reader, the "how to" posts are here, here, here, here and of course, the "recipe post" here.

Which when layered together look like this:


To see what it looks like in fabric, come back on Wednesday!
ac

Check it out!  It looks almost the same, just a little deeper, which is what I was going for.

And so then I worked on my quilting to see if I could make leaves in a way that doesn't make my trees look like lollipops.

First I tried to do what I think of as a standard kind of "leaf" shape.  It wasn't bad, all in all I think it'll be a fairly successful foreground if I were going to do a forest type thing.



And then I tried a more abstract sort of leaf - not really a leaf, but more the suggestion of a leaf.


I liked that much better, and I think it'll look good I think as a kind of background leaf - if I wanted another tree in the foreground to stand out more, for instance, this would be a good choice.




And then I tried this kind of pine-needly kind of evergreen sort of thing - which really - I mean this isn't a tree that exists anywhere in nature (lol), but this needle shape will be great for a future evergreen - and was really the most successful of the three, in my opinion.


So, this little journeyman piece had two purposes - to try and conquer the lollipop tree and to figure out what leaves work best. I like all of the leaves for their various purposes, and the lollipop effect was somewhat diminished, so all in all, a good experiment.  More to come in future, never fear! I still have THIS one to quilt!

Don't forget about the giveaway - you can still enter until 11:00 p.m. tonight - I'll announce the winner tomorrow.

'Til then,

My little transfer paint piece is complete. I've been reading Game of Thrones and my head is filled with images of that magical realism world; the kind of place where supernatural happenings and creatures blend seamlessly with the "real" world.

The Weirwood trees are white I know, but this one is in shadow, at dusk, in late autumn.

And it can both hear you and see you.


Process here and here, how to do transfer painting here

When I last left you, we were looking at something like this....

Remember this from last year?





It had some problems.  Even more problems than I thought it did now that I'm looking at it almost a year later. 

If you've been with me for awhile, you may remember that back in October, I posted about a tree I was working on - the "practice run" for a series of trees I see in my head.



After looking at it for awhile, I didn't like the mixed cream background anymore so decided to paint it, and this weekend I finally got around to it.


As I worked with these colours, I realized that a: I needed to thin them out even more, and b: I was going to need a lot more paint than these little trays would hold!


But after a lot more thinning out and a lot more white - I ended up with this:


Although I have a very specific vision for this piece that it involves this orientation, BSP was looking at it the wrong way and thought it was a branch floating in the water . That would make it a completely different quilt than I had intended, but what say you?



Do you like it this way better?

Last week, I left you after I had done some work on some birds. 

When I was done the birds, I began working on the point of the project - the tree. First I drew a pattern for the tree



I cut three of the pattern - one to use as a guide, one to actually cut up for piecing, and one for "just in case".

Once I had the pattern, I pinned one of them to my background,



(birds in place for my own amusement, not because I'm actually going to leave them there. )

And then cut up the second one into workable pieces.  I cut the pattern pieces in fusible interfacing, as my original plan was to fuse the pieces of fabric into place,


 but when I began the process, I realized that to achieve the look that I wanted I  needed to sew them on. 



I used a loden green cotton thread to do so, and once they were attached, I trimmed to fit the piece of interfacing.



Approximately one million hours later, I was finished piecing the tree parts, combined them, and ended up with this:


Now I am constructing approximately one million leaves. 

More on that, later.

Kit