Summer - Day 6

It took a longer to finish the trees than I expected. I had prepared a lot more but in this case I decided "less was more" and added only three. Even then it took a long time deciding WHERE they would go. 

I stitched down both side of these latest 3 and went back to the 9 from the other day and worked them as well. To give each a little more importance. I "stuffed" them. The smaller ones had 3 or 4 strands of yarn put under the material. The 3 large ones had a strip of batting plus yarn to fill them out. I tried a photo from the side to see if this effect would show up. 

Nothing left but.......SHRUBBERY

Summer - Day 5

4 hours,
9 more trees.
and more leaves.....
From here on all the materials are stitched down, rather than netted.
The brightness of their colour says foreground.

The hold up?
I haven't quite decided how to finish the lower foreground.......

Summer - Day 4

The background for this one is complete.
I added 4 more bigger evergreens, in colours a little brighter. They will easily be seen. The darker ones will reveal them selves when you look at the bolder ones. Though in my photos they are almost invisible.

"Hundreds" more leaves and more birch trunks.
Hummmmmmm maybe I was wrong about my not having lots and lots of trees.

I'm not quite ready to sew the two sides together yet.

Summer - Day 3

I started the day doing what I should have done from the start. I cut this piece in two. I thought about but didn't act until it was time to stitch. The smaller piece makes everything more secure and easier to handle.

I inserted a small triangular piece at the left to taper the dark area under the netting. Then I stitched. That took about 3 hours.
Beginning again, I added 20 slivers of cloth for the birch boles .
More "leaves" and more (trees) threads and cord. It's important to work right to the edges, even if you end up cutting it down.

To finish the day, another layer under tulle.

Summer - Day 2

( Yes.. I renamed the file..summer seemed more apropos.!)
A good morning's start.

All of the multi batik was scattered, in bunches. First ,it was placed to soften the edge between the light and dark materials and then I placed to to imply density in both the top and some in the bottom.
These pictures are all taken with the cloth laying on my worktable, not ideal but other than a light tack spray, nothing is attached.

The batik tones down or covers the yellow and orange in the background fabric nicely.
I also added slim trunks, full 6 strands of embroidery floss ( 3 colours ) and then some cut pieces of black thread for branches.

Another light misting of tack and about half of the lighter colours were placed slectively, to "complete" a "tree".

This is still all background and it goes together very quickly.

In the afternoon I tackled a few evergreens. I have no idea how many I'm going to insert. The longer I look at the photo I think the dark area is a result of a rock face rather than the evergreens. ????

Standard method here, tulle or netting in a hoop. I like to use a darker colour in the bobbin to add a little interest and break up the mono colour. I did 5 altogether. That's enough for today.

These just "stuck on" and almost disappear, but they do peak through.
As a final act at the end of the day, I rolled a layer of tulle over the whole piece and pinned it well so I could hang, photograph and "see" it properly for the first time.