Although a number of people didn’t think I needed any leaves on my embroidered tree, I decided to go ahead with the leaves.

I used a lighter value yellow green to contrast a bit with the blue green background. The thread is a #8 hand dyed perle cotton. I’m not sure that you can see the variations in the thread color as it is subtle but it’s not a solid color. I used a solid fishbone stitch to create the leaves. I decided not to mark the leaf shape on the background fabric, thus there are some that are a bit wonky, but that doesn’t bother me.

Here’s a closer look at the stitching.

And here’s the piece after the stitching is finished. If you can see, the width of the fabric shrunk a bit with the stitching. The piece of fabric was barely wide enough to make a cover for my tablet to begin with and now I decided it wasn’t going to work to make a cover. So my first quarter challenge effort was a bit of a fail.

But never fear, the piece fit into a frame that I already had so it was a good use of stuff lying around the studio. I realize that I could have made a cover for the tablet and added the tree to the front but I wasn’t sure I would use the cover and the framed piece can always go to one of the galleries.