Four Hours of......

COOKIES
A couple of hundred cookies etc PLUS Fruit Cake

Funny I don't come away from four hours of sewing feeling nauseous.
(All that cookie dough, all those bowls to lick.)

Mountain Pine - Day 3

I wanted to finish anchoring all the pieces and to see just how much quilting might be necessary.
I outlined all the snow and the rock varieties. Beyond that any stitching really didn't seem to show, so I can leave it and fill in as necessary at the end.
Just love that mono filament thread.

In addition to that work which fixed all the carefully butted 'snow' and tulle overlay, I put in the tree trunks. The two major ones are rolled and stitched and the rest were fused.

Most of the work for the next little while will be hoop and tulle work. Now that I'm at this point I can stop or pick it up for a few hours or a few minutes. As this part is similar to the piece I made in 2014 I don't think there will be any surprises.

That gives me time to shop, bake, cook a couple of major dinners, play with my grandson.
Clean? Well, as I have to do some baby proofing that might go hand in hand.

Have a Great Holiday!

No Sewing today!

Spent the day with Hubby

Christmas Shopping

Sewing? Maybe tomorrow!

😁🌲 

Mountain Pine -Day 2

I'm feeling my way through this as I haven't decided on the finish. It needs to be fully quilted before I apply the main trees, but that's still the question.

I went back today and disassembled everything down to the rock application.
All the cheesecloth/organza was stitched down.
All the batting snow was glued into place.
All the green precipice trees were glue tacked, (that's all they're going to get)

The 'snow' was reposition, trimmed and tucked under the foreground cliffs.
The tulle anchor was stitched into place along the foreground rock.
Whew!

Enough for today.

Mountain Pine - Day 1

Four fabrics plus white batting for the snow. A pretty simple palette really. The detail will come from the stitching.

I made a large cartoon to help with the placement of the rockfalls and ledges that are suggested in the photo. Upon close examination the ledges are all covered with trees. We'll see how much is really necessary.

I experimented yesterday layering bits of cheesecloth, tulle and organza trying to develop the foggy or hazy look from the photo. Is it snow?

Today I cut and layered, pinned only this time. After several variations I came up with this.

 

Over the background ( which was flannel, all I had) I used a combination of chessecloth and organza to replicate the colour of the cliff face on the left.
Over this, white batting was cut to suggest snow covered ledges. This was covered with a split piece of poly batting, gently pulled apart into 2 thinner layers. And finally over that, tulle anchored everything in place.

Nothing is stitched.
So I'll live with this for a few days? or not. The tulle and poly 'haze' will need to be removed in order to stitch the distant trees clinging to the mountain side.
This is definitely one of those times where the background will need to be completely finished before the tree feature is added.
Lots to think about here.

Here We Go Again

So close to Christmas but it seems most of my family celebrations are being pushed back. The kids get the holidays they're given by their employers, and with blended families, they can't be everywhere at once.
SO
That means I can work on another piece that's lurked at the back of my mind. (Cookies? later)

I keep a number of 'possibilities' in files on my computer and I've moved this particular one forward for a couple of years now.
Today It feels right.

What can I say?
I love trees.

Chekamus Canyon River - Final

I worked the water this morning. (3 shades of cheesecloth plus white)
So....... for all practical purposes, this is finished.

Cropping to its best ratio and binding are all that is left.
No hurry for that.
Thanks for following along.

Chekamus Canyon River - Day 16

Today I worked with two different methods for foliage.
The first was the sandwich of 'solvy' with fabric chips stitched together. The second I hadn't done for a while. So it was rather meditative......stitching individual leaves to a stem.

This plant was tall with a broom type flower head. Here are 4 already placed. I will do more in the foreground as we near the end.

Chekamus Canyon River - Day 15

Detail takes time.
With other commitments later, this was a short day.
All these sections were assembled off the canvas: a sandwich of 'solvy' over tulle, washed and trimmed before stitching to the scene.

Two separate pieces here clearly defined by colour.

Three pieces...2 saplings over a bush.

Every day the shrubbery creeps over the rock face.

Chekamus Canyon River - Day 14

I couldn't post yesterday. I had to re charge my camera!

But I think I'm very near the end of the evergreens.
I've used a number of thread colours to add depth and shadow but now it's time to work the outer layers of the trees.
I first thought this variegated thread would be too bright but it added the 'life' I needed. For the last panel of branches in the hoop I used two different threads, adding a little more variation to the needle colour.

The lighter colours lift the branches and more the tree forward.

Chekamus Canyon River - Day 12

A lot more deciduous foliage is assembled and stitched........................

and then covered with thick evergreen boughs in two colours.

Chekamus Canyon River - Day 11

Roughly four hours today.
Filling in all the foliage and evergreens is slow work.
The main tree needed four separate constructions to fill out this section satisfactorily.
At this rate I think it will be about another week to finish.

Chekamus Canyon River - Day 10

Short day to day.
Things are really slowing down because every branch is planned.

Since I'm working with the really close images, even the branches show, so in response they're beefed up and stitched thoroughly.

The picture shows the size of the individual stitches. I'm working with a very slow stitch and dragging the thread out up to between half an inch and a quarter of an inch.

 

 I didn't want to use my very best threads yet so this is all being done with inexpensive serging thread. At this speed it stands up very well, but I'm going through a lot.

The look is very life like. To anchor the stitches to the background, I'm tacking down the ends of the loops. I haven't cut the netting away nearly anywhere near the precision of the trees before hand as I think the structure would still be fragile. Having more netting helps in the security.

The last pictures show the three sessions in place.
You can see that progress is slow.

Chekamus Canyon River - Day 9

I got off to a late start this morning. When I realized it was 17 days 'til Christmas......I went shopping.
Whew!

Most of the right side of this piece is in place. If I do add more trees it will be after I finish the left side and see how things balance.

Chekamus Canyon River - Day 8

From here on, everything that is stitched is for a specific location. In other words the individual trees are 'painted' one by one. This really slows the process as there is a specific order in their placement. Most are going over rock faces that also need definition as I move forward. Order become very important to make sure that branches that should lay over another, do so.

I jumped from rock face to rock face on either side of the river as well as elevation.

It looks as though I didn't get very far. But in spite of some distractions this morning. I'm happy to stop here.

Chekamus Canyon River - Day 7

It was nice to finally add some deciduous foliage amid the unrelenting evergreen forests.

Chekamus River Canyon - Day 6

After evaluating the increasing distortion in this piece I decided it was time to add batting and backing. The piece was moving because my stabilizer was tearing minutely and stretching in spots. This was from the repeated pinning and repining to the design wall and putting it through my machine.
So now it should remain straight, There is still a bit of wowing in the river but that will disappear when I finish that section....last.

Again working on the right side, I defined rock formations with stitching and added a number of trees.
As the trees get larger and are designed for specific spots, the work gets slower.

Chekamus River Canyon - Day 5

I spent an hour 'sketching' small trees onto netting. These were to be positioned down the distant slope on the right side of the canyon. However, when I went to place them in position I realized I had to deal with the sky...finally. It would have been very difficult to stitch around the tiny trees.

Necessity forced a decision and I went with close, straight lines. This took the rest of the morning.

I placed registration marks with a water erasable pen on the sky to help keep the stitching even and straight and sewed lines about 1/4 in apart. I used the pressure foot to give me the width between the lines.
A spritz with water and the lines disappeared.

As the ends of the lines stopped at the edge of previous stitching I worked the tails through to the back side, combed them in one direction and glued them in place with a strip of stabilizer. This strip will be incorporated with the final stitching.

After a late lunch, I was finally in a position to attach all those trees I had assembled in the morning.

Tomorrow is another day. 😁

Chekamus River Canyon - Day 4

Moved forward by two hill slopes this morning.

The whole picture puts it all in perspective.

I think I"ll shift to the other side for awhile.

Chekamus River Canyon - Day 3

For those keeping track, this is 5 hours of machine work.

The very distant slopes are covered with trees. That was simple but lengthy machine work.

The back illustration shows the volume of stitches in this area

.
The green swath down the left side, forest, I worked off the piece in a hoop.

As the size of the thread painting area gets larger the more distortion can occur. Though it may not be

readily visible in the pictures there are many different shades of green being used here. 

The final part for today was comprised of trees in the left hand section that rise above the slope edge and sit in front of the distant hill. It's these 'eruptions' that give life to the work.

My twitch muscles have given out for the day. I'll pick this up again tomorrow.