Castle Rock - Final

It's a month since I started this at a SAQA workshop at Crieff and while it took a few days to get back to it once I was home, it's done.
Now I have to lay it aside a week for other matters. When I do get back to finishing the quilting, I don't expect the image itself will change at all.

Castle Rock - Day 16

It took the morning to stitch down all the foliage at the bottom. I was going to net it but at the last minute I took it off and stitched the leaves individually.

The trunks were thread painted, and finally this afternoon I started on the canopy of the forest.
Another day should do it.

Castle Rock - Day 15

Even I have a breaking point.
I spent several hours this morning (as well as countless hours before) making fern and bracken fronds. Then.............I hit the wall.
Enough already!

So I took six charm squares I had set aside, cut them all up and literally threw them at the bottom.
All assembled. 😁

What's next?
Before the final quilting I need to thread paint the large trees, the add fine branch work on the horizon....and a little more diddly stuff as I come to it.
See you on the other side.

Castle Rock - Day 13

Little bits and pieces.
Ferns and bracken and moss.
They all take....time and patience.

Castle Rock - Day 12

The remaining foreground was 'softened' with cheesecloth.
I increased the size of the moss coloured log. Now it needs to be hidden with moss and ferns.
All the large trees were stitched down and a 8 inch (construction size) conifer added to the right and trees/shrubs to the left and right.

Castle Rock - Day 11

Now construction has moved to the lower half and the middle ground I need to jump around. It's easier to finish a section, left, middle, right.
I added colour to all? the trees. Most are only pinned. As some would receive more direct light at different times of the day I tried to show this with colour on the boles of the tree.

The hoop stitched trees were all destined for the right side. At this point it's wasted effort to hoop construct and not know what is going to cover your work.

Tree height and planned exposure suggests the colour.

These two group sit on the right, partially in shade, under one trunk, over two and tight against another.

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Castle Rock - Day 10

Moving forward.

And time to place the remaining trees.

Castle Rock -Day 9

The morning was spent tacking down all the vegetation I made yesterday and today.

Then I played with the Big trees.

Castle Rock - Day 8

I must have caught up on my sleep/energy because I got an early start this morning.

I worked on the third overlay using brighter colours to bring the sunlight into the center of the forest.
I had to shift to a larger hoop and found even though my support tulle was too small I was able to increase the size with satisfactory stability by simply pinning another piece of tulle to the edge.

So here are the steps for this morning's piece.

washed and ready to place

 Before I trim these overlays and stitch them down it's time to finalize the tree trunk structure, colour and position
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The ones in the background are pretty straightforward. Five are locked into the three overlays of brush.

Castle Rock - Day 7

Another half day here, but I managed to complete the two side pieces.
Each is group (2+) of evergreens accompanied by shrubs. Different thread and fabric colours are how I'm changing the light.

The first photos are the raw work with the solvy still on. The backside give a better idea of the contructions overlays.

After it was washed, dried and cut apart, the two sides are pinned into place.

Castle Rock - Day 6

This long Easter weekend was a good time to catch up on things and sleep...and energy.

Wednesday past I drove to Orillia from Guelph and gave two talks to two different guilds, the Orillia Quilters Guilt and the Evening Thread Quilt Guild. I had a great time and they certainly asked a lot of really meaty questions.

I didn't get into my hotel bed until well after 10 pm. Where as I thought I had slept, my energy level put me on the couch as soon as I arrived back home. I basically stayed there until Friday afternoon. The rain just encouraged me to spend Saturday there as well. I fit in a little Easter baking and read a good book.
Finally, today, Sunday I was back.

But after catching up on things around here I was left with only half a day.
But I wanted to try something I'd been thinking about. Getting it out of my head always lets me sleep better.

In order to save time, materials and lower my frustration levels I thought I'd combine constructing deciduous shrubs and evergreens with solvy and netting.

 Materials on the netting then overlaid with solvey for stitching

This piece of netting is actually very large, the width of the landscape and about a long. I will continue to layer the deciduous materials and the conifer stitching overlay, at least for about 6in+ down the piece.

I don't intend to remove the solvey until I go to attach it to the landscape. This does interfere with trying to get useful photos but...

Castle Rock Forest - Day 5

A short day today, but I wanted to finish the colour blocking with an over lay of gauze.

My colour supply is getting low as I did little painting last summer and I had given some away at my last workshop. But what I had worked with a little bit of dipping in the dregs of my coffee.
Truly! Anything for the art. 😉
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I re posted the bare cloth so the difference is clear. Much softer transitions. This is only glued in place and where I want to highlight the colour.....I simply cut it away.

The other thing I wanted to do was to use some of the 'shrubs' I stitched at Crieff. In hindsight, they weren't quite what I was after. So I got out my T shirt pens and then dipped them into coffee as well.
Now they blend into the background a little better.

These are stitched onto the upper left.

Castle Rock Forest - Day 4

After stitching and placing a few more trees, I decided I needed to finish the colour blocking.
Working on an empty canvas with such detail gives me no real clue to size and colour of the foliage.

This photo is just a tad dark, but I like the effect. It tones down the bright orange forest floor. That's a job for cheesecloth. I may have to make some in the right colour.

 It's also a good time to start thinking about tree number and placement.

What a difference!

Mountain Tree - Final

Living on the Edge

In the end I heavily cropped this piece.
This brings the trees forward
20x40 in.

Mountain Pine - Day 8

I had a really good session this morning and afternoon, so I can see some real progress now.

On the downside, I 'broke' my JUKI and had to set up my Husqvarna for the free motion work necessary to produce the branches. 😒
There is a LARGE wait time in my area for repairs as there are only a few places that do the work.
It will have to wait.
I can finish the piece on the Husqvarna.  😌

Mountain Tree - Day 7

Found the time to get back to this one.

A few dilemmas here. I ran out of the the very white batting I used for the large snow drifts and can't remember where I sourced it. I auditioned a few items included velvet and cotton balls and in the end went with the whitest batting I had. Most of the snow lodged in the trees will be hidden but.... I find things like that very annoying. The worst part was I lost a couple of days.

Noe that I'm working the remaining two major trees things have slowed down even more. Almost every branch is done as an individual and they are placed in a trial and error manner. While this method is very effective and useful...it is slow.

Mountain Tree - Day 6

All of the lesser or 'background' trees are complete.

Mountain Pine - Day 5?

Well into this New Year I can turn my attention fo a while to our sentinel Pine on the cliff edge.

While the pieces seem to be large as I work them in the 6 inch and 8 inch  hoops, they disappear into the scene with surprising regularity. But none of the branches are particularly robust. They are survivors, stunted and gnarled.

Mountain Pine - Catching up

Christmas isn't quite over for our household yet. We have one more round of family this coming weekend.
I'm fortunate in one way that it has been so spread out this year as I spent the week after Christmas in bed with whatever illness caught up with me.
Now that I'm back on my feet, (sort of), I finished the background rocks of the Pine and today placed the first of the trees.

But I have to put it all aside again as I need to finish a present for the weekend and next week is when all 8 pieces of the CQA piece will be brought together.
So I may bounce around for the next few posts.

Here's where I ended this afternoon with our mountain scene.
The first of the trees was made of about twenty separate pieces. That's how this fellow is going to go. More work and much more waste as each branch is truly custom.

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.