Tale of a Tail in the Sky

I would not have believed that the tail of this bird would give me so much grief.
The aspect was underneath from the forward side. Sounds straight forward. So trying to translate the photos into something that wasn't there cost me a day. (Well not the whole day. Had a few errands to do etc. just life dragging me out of my studio!)
But I think I've got it now. I like the lightweight fusible material because I can move it. It does release and in most cases, if the fabric is a tight weave, there is no damage. It can be reapplied several times. As these pieces will all be sew over they only need to stay put.
The hind leg is still only pinned. I'm not sure about it yet.

Today I spent the whole day constructing a background. I wanted something a little different if not original, to feature the goose but still add to the image.
While I was at the CQA Quilt show my husband and I admired a piece that consisted almost entirely of very closely stitched straight lines. The colours blended and changed the background fabric in a  subtle but effective way. I thought I might try that method for this piece.
So I constructed my background in my usual manner, cloth, batting and canvas. Realizing it would be an annoying struggle to manipulate the 36x44 piece of canvass I decided to through the whole thing on the longarm. Do to that I had to add a header and tail to the canvas in order to attaching to the longarm frame.

That done I started stitching straight lines. I quickly discovered the error of using canvas at this point. Even the quilting threads had their breaking point. I tried all manner of tension adjustment but the hard material shredded everything.
Call me stubborn but I spent all day coaxing embroidery thread, serging thread, old thread, new thread, knowing I was not going to be able to use this particular backing for this piece. Too many breakages, stops and starts.
BUT IT WANTED TO SEE HOW IT LOOKED. so I almost finished it. The last bobbin running out called the end of the day.

 

So I quickly trimmed the goose and pinned it to the backing.
Here's how she looks on this wonderful sky interpretation.

I think this will be an excellent piece. Tomorrow I will shop for CLEAN fresh material for the sky and begin stitching it all again. Hopefully with less grief.