By Gum!

Third hanging mainly finished!

I'm pleased with this - I confess to using a couple of gum tree images from the internet to help me get the essential form of a gum tree, then I just free styled the leafy areas.

Of course, whilst I was reviewing the hangings, I remembered that I'd thought that it would be nice to tie them together still further by adding fabric gum  leaves to them all.

I think that I've found a fabric that will work with all three hangings, so I've been making a set of gum leaves.  Paler fabric on the back - partly because in nature leaves are rarely the same colour front and back and partly because I only had one small scrap of the front fabric!  Just enough to make these but no more.

This weeks task will be to decide where and how to attach them, and to finally get to three completely finished hangings!

Two Down....

 

I've now completed two of the planned three wall hangings for my friends.

This is one of the small ones.  Simple hand applique with a quilted background.

Below is the larger central piece with this one alongside it.

Progress!

This week I want to start on my third, which will see a decent amount of thread sketching again.

I'm Pretty Sure.....

....that last week when I thought that I was almost done with this wall hanging that I believed it.

I'm also pretty sure that the right order is to complete the stitching on it before blocking and trimming it.

But is that what I did?  NO!  I blocked it.  I trimmed it.  I laid it down on the floor whilst I worked on something else - but it kept catching my eye.  The section of background was too dark, and the other trees weren't standing out against it.

What to do?  I threw caution to the wind and covered it in two directions with a paler thread and a decorative stitch.

Can you see the difference between to the two shots, one before, one after?  I'm pleased with the lightening up of the areas, I think.

Idea for using a decorative stitch like this gleaned from looking at some of Anne Kelly's work....

 Of course, I've now got more lumps and bumps to deal with.  It needs to be blocked again, and it will be with hope rather than expectation that I will actually able able to get it to lie flat once more.

Wish me luck!

Hardly Begun and Almost Finished

Two very different projects this week!

This is the start of a small hand stitched peice, with patterns based on a printed fabric that I liked.

I can't remember where I got this piece of silk from.  It's clearly the leavings of a dressmaker, but I'm not sure where I got it from, perhaps my late MiL.

It will grow slowly, just a few stitches each day.

 The other project is only similar in that it is stitched through wadding!  This is the back of it, showing the dense machine quilting - still to be finished, as it is a landscape that is only quilted as far as the horizon currently and it also needs some more thread sketching for additional details too.  I think that the biggest challenge will be blocking it at the finish to try and persuade it to lie flat!