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Felt landscape of spring birch showing close up of hand stitched leaves (detached chain stitch).
Stitching on Spring Birch Landscape

Stitching on Spring Birch Landscape

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My spring birch landscape has been stitched and applied to a backing board so it’s ready to frame. I showed you the first stages of the landscape in this post if you missed it.

Felt landscape of spring birch with free motion machine stitching added.

I added free motion machine stitching to the distant shore. Whenever I start FME on a landscape, I always think that the first few areas where I have stitched look like it’s too much. But I keep going and usually, once more stitching is added, the initial lines don’t feel excessive.

Felt landscape of spring birch with free motion machine stitching added to rocks in foreground.

The next step was to stitch the rocks across from the tree. I considered adding some stitching into the foliage above the rocks but decided to leave it as is.

Felt landscape of spring birch with free motion machine stitching added to tree trunk and branches.

Then on to stitching the tree. I added the dark bits to the trunk and stitching through the felted paper was a breeze, no problems at all either by machine or by hand. The dark branches were added next and then decision time on how to add a few more leaves. I considered needle felting some smaller leaves on the dark branches but then decided I would hand stitch the leaves.

I then hand stitched leaves on to the dark branches using hand dyed lace weight wool thread and detached chain stitch. I added a few bits of grass at the bottom of the trunk as well.

Felt landscape of spring birch stitched to background fabric and wrapped/laced around board ready to frame.

The miracle is that I found a backing fabric, stitched the felt to that and then wrapped/laced the piece around matte board so it’s ready to frame. Since the piece is small (matte size 8″ x 10″), it went quickly and now I have two pieces ready to take to the framers. This piece counts for the year long tree challenge for spring. I have to think about the summer one as it wouldn’t really look different than spring, a few more leaves perhaps?

Nuno felt landscape of winter birch stitched to "matte" fabric and wrapped/laced around board.

The winter birch piece is also ready for framing. I used a darker gray hand dyed fabric for the winter birch as it felt “colder” that way. Now on to the next landscape as the gallery wants me to replace the one that sold last month. (Doing a little happy dance!)

This is the piece that sold called Remembrance. Yay!

Nuno Felted background with four handstitched silk paper applique birch trees on the left over tulle pine trees. Auditions of foreground birch trees overlapping other trees in the distance.
Winter Birch Continued

Winter Birch Continued

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Blue and white nuno felted background with tulle pine tree shapes on the left and birch trees cut from silk paper on the right.

Here’s where I was with Winter Birch the last time I wrote about the project. I was trying to decide how to represent the pine trees in the distance. This is black tulle burned with a heat tool to represent the trees.

Tulle pine trees created by burning with a heat tool in greens and navy blue.

I made more tulle trees in the same manner with dark green and navy blue tulle. In theory, it seemed like a good idea to overlay these over the black tulle trees. But then when I did that, the trees were just a mish mash and you couldn’t really see them. So I decided to just use the black ones.


Nuno Felted background with silk paper applique birch trees over tulle pine trees. Audition of how pine trees will look in the distance.

Here are the black trees with the birch in place before I stitched them down.

Nuno Felted background with tulle pine trees hand stitched in place with feather stitch. Close up.

I hand stitched them down with a dark variegated thread and used feather stitch. It added a little bit of green but nothing you could see from a distance.

Nuno Felted background with handstitched silk paper applique birch tree over tulle pine trees.

Then I moved on to the birch trees on the left that are in the background. I hand appliqued the silk paper birch trunk in place and then free motion machine stitched the branches. I want the branches to overlap and not appear all on one “level” so that is why I am stitching each trunk and branches separately.

Here is the progression of the stitching on the background birch trees. This always takes longer than I think it should. But I did like alternating between hand and machine stitching.

Nuno Felted background with four handstitched silk paper applique birch trees on the left over tulle pine trees. Auditions of foreground birch trees overlapping other trees in the distance.

Here I am auditioning the foreground trees over what I have stitched so far. I think I will probably stitch down the background birches on the right side first but I do like to see how the overlapping trees affects the piece. I am also trying to decide if I should attempt adding more snow to the picture. What do you think?

Blue and white nuno felted background with tulle background trees (layers of tulle) and cut silk paper birch trees in foreground.
First Quarter Challenge – Winter Birch

First Quarter Challenge – Winter Birch

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I’m always up for getting two things done with one piece. So I decided to create a winter themed tree picture that I could prepare to take to the gallery which has sold three of my pieces. (Yay!)

Blue and white nuno felt to be used as landscape background.

I found a piece of nuno felt in my pile of felted stuff that seemed perfect for a wintry background. Since I had just finished framing The First Leaf, I immediately thought of birch trees again since the years challenge is to create the same trees in different seasons. So birch trees it is.

Blue and white nuno felt background with cut silk paper birch trees.

I cut the birch trees from my remaining silk paper and got the placement how I wanted it. I need to make more silk paper for my spring and summer birch trees. But this seemed a little ho hum. The plan is to add branches with free motion machining but I still thought it needed more. The left background felt like perhaps there were some pine/evergreens in the distance. Perhaps I could enhance that?

Blue and white nuno felted background with tulle background trees (layers of tulle) and cut silk paper birch trees in foreground.

So I added some layers of tulle in vague tree shapes on that side. But it wasn’t enough contrast and the tree shapes were getting lost. What to do?

Blue and white nuno felted background with tulle pine tree shapes on the left and birch trees cut from silk paper on the right.

Here’s the start of the next idea. Burn the tulle into tree shapes with a wood burning tool. This is just one of the colors of tulle I am planning on using. I will still be layering the tulle but hopefully, this will give a bit more emphasis to the shapes of the trees in the background without overwhelming the foreground trees. Once I have the evergreens worked out, then it’s on to some stitching.

Have you created something that works for our 1st quarter or year’s challenge? If so, we’d love to see it. You can upload your photos here.

 

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