Making Trees

Scrubby trees that grow along shorelines are needed for my mountain lake piece. The only other trees I had made were for this piece:

Across the River (24"x 24") - 2007

and the forest fire trilogy.

Regeneration (60"x34") - 2006

Bits and pieces were stitched directly on the background fabrics. In the full grown forest in the above piece there are three layers of complete trees. That's a lot of stitching that distorts the base fabrics. So, I came up with another method that surely I'm not the first to discover.

It begins with cutting trunks and branches.
Laying them in basic tree shapes on a sheet of water soluble stabilizer that has been lightly misted with a spray adhesive. To add leaves, I cut thin strips of many colors of green fabric and snipped bits directly onto the stabilizer. I let them fall "wherever".
I kept building up branches and trunks and lots of leaves. Then laid another layer of water soluble stabilizer on top. It also had been lightly misted with a spray adhesive.
That "sandwich" of tree pieces was heavily stitched making sure that all lines of stitching crossed a number of times to ensure that all of these tiny pieces are connected. Click the photo to see a close-up of the stitching. I used a Microtex needle and Superior's polyester thread ... smoke in the top and clear in the bobbin (because I have more clear than smoke).
I slipped a plastic bag over a cutting board to give support to the lacy trees while I ran water over it to dissolve the stabilizer. I set the nozzle to a light spray to more easily wash away the sticky stuff.
I patted it dry with paper towels while it was still supported by the cutting board.
It was easy to pick up and lay on this plastic grid to dry flat.
I've made several batches of scrub trees and bushes for the foreground shore of the mountain lake piece. That is the first project I'll work on when I get to Michigan.

We are packing up the Elvismobile and our projects and machines to head north on Thursday. If you see a red SUV pulling a smallish black trailer plastered with Elvis "stuff" through Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, and Michigan give a honk and a wave.

Next week I'll be back to post the results of those newly constructed trees. By then I may have thought of the best way to stitch them to the quilt top. I'm open for suggestions.