Hey Everyone, welcome back to Stitch Along Sunday.
Another week gone by, another week closer to spring. Actually we had spring like temps last week with sunshine and melting snow – it was fabulous. I can’t wait to put the boots, parka and other winter accessories away for another year and pull out the shorts, t-shirts and flip flops.
For now though I will just have to live vicariously through this month’s stitch along piece and pretend I am on a warm beach somewhere soaking up the rays.
If you missed last week’s post I added a palm tree to my landscape strips of beach and sky. It seems a lot longer than a week ago that I did that.
This week’s rules can be found on Ruth’s blog – March week 3 rules. Also don’t forget to check out this month’s Stitch Along Gallery and see what everyone else is up to with their little projects.
Today I have to stitch my strips of fabric to the batting and backing as well as the palm tree. Then I need to add something in a vertical orientation to the piece – hmmmmm, I’ll have to do some thinking about that while I am stitching down the background.
I didn’t bother to cut the strips any narrower and just did the stitch and flip method of sewing them together. Some I put straight across while others at a bit of an angle just to give a bit of contrast in the landscape.
The third strip being added on an angle
I did make sure that my horizon line was not smack dab in the middle of the piece. It is more pleasing to the eye if it is not in the centre of the piece.
Strips all sewn together
After sewing the strips in place I trimmed it up to the edge of the batting so I would know the boundaries for placing my palm tree and that vertical piece that I still have no idea what it will be.
Edges trimmed and palm tree placed
After fusing the palm tree in place I used a brown variegated thread from Aurifil to stitch around the tree trunk with blanket stitch.
Stitching done on palm tree
I wanted the stitching to stand out on the leaves so I used a 12 weight wool thread from Aurifil. And as you can see in the photo above it does stand out. I only have three spools of this thread and just happened to the perfect green. I used a 100 needle for this thread since it is quite thick plus I also decreased my tension to 2 but after having just been on the Aurifil website they recommend a 90/14 topstitch needle. I’ll give it a try next time and see how it goes.
Now what to do about that vertical component.
One option is to add in some beads that look like rocks or maybe baby turtles heading out to sea. In vertical formation of course.
Beads added in vertical rows
Anyway I’m not quite sure what to do for this so will think about it some more and reveal my decision next week.
Happy Quilting!
