As I moved forward, the detail changed from being suggested to being very important. I was running out of steam. I spent most of my waking hours when I wasn't stitching, musing on upcoming issues. When I walked I looked at the light behind the leaves to get a sense of the proportion of light to dark leaves.
I took several trips to our local arboretum to look at how the branching habit changes with the prolonged exposure. How many young trees survive to reach 4 to 5 ft tall, tall enough that I needed to consider them in my design.
One thing I've learned from my several forays to the CQA shows is every square inch needs to be filled, either with stitching or material. When I look back at some of my work I realized I was doing that, but in tiny bits. Now I'm trying to do it evenly across the whole scene.
So after a break at the cottage ( and a few days to recover from that! ) I finally got my head back to where it needs to be, hopefully refreshed and ready to make ART.
I didn't really want to do a lot of the leaf detail with netting. Yes, it works but it does, to a small degree, reduce the luster and colour intensity of the material. Parts of this woodlot scene are in bright light and the netting was making it dull. I spent a few hours cutting out all the netting I could.
I wanted a different approach. This morning I thought I'd try the washaway stabilizer again, as a sandwich for all the minute.
I added some small bits of the green and yellow organza along with the small leaves. The stitching with variegated thread was just enough to hold each piece in place. After it was washed away, dried and ironed I placed it into position (trial and error here) with mono filament so there would be minimal over lap of thread to keep things bright and clear.
I'm satisfied and delighted with the look. It took about an hour to assemble a patch about 4 inches square but a minute to attach it. Ha!
The other thorny issue that was pushing itself forward was how to finish this piece. I have made a large number of big pieces with self bindings and they look nice, but I wanted to go back to using a frame as a background. I spent a few hours this past week auditioning material from my stash, and this morning I found it!
Last month I was taken to a "new" (for me) store with OMG, great prices. I had brought home this Northcott Stonehedge fabric in a pattern I had never purchased before, and I love the affect.
( Those leaves are the ones I used a while ago, dried and pressed. TO BE REPLACED!)
So I think I'm back in the groove again. ( That's good......I'll be less crabby and eat less!)
If you live in my area, Kitchener/Waterloo, here's the link to this woman's store. Very much worth a visit!
carolinequilts.blogspot.ca
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