Creating a Tree

Last Saturday, I took a class with some friends, taught by Elaine Quehl. She's a terrific quilt artist living in Ottawa.

We had a choice of 3 tree patterns to choose from; one summer, one fall and one winter. Most of us chose her summer pattern. Here's her finished version called Branching Out - isn't it wonderful? It's quite a bit larger than I expected - probably two feet long!

Branching Out by Elaine Quehl

The first thing we did was copy her pattern on some muslin. We then backed the fabrics we will use on the tree bark with fusible web and then started cutting pieces to stick to the muslin.

My tree trunk

It was very enjoyable but quite labour intensive. Now I have to cut the muslin, sew it onto a temporary background and sew it to add texture and interest to the tree trunk. Then comes the background fabric and the leaves! It could be a long project.

What I learned:

• Bigger pieces were better than smaller ones.
• To get it to look like shading, it's important to work your way from one colour to another.
• A little accent goes a long way!
• It never looks good close up - you have to view it from afar to give it justice.