Thursday 1 February 2024

Patterns in Nature

 My Patterns in Nature piece is based on this photo. 


I have always been fascinated by a stand of trees. The long straight lines reaching up to the sky. I want to go stand amidst them (and have). This particular stand of trees are birch trees seen on an overcast day while in northern Minnesota. 

My finished quilt measures 19" x 25.5" and is very simple. I worked with monochrome colors in white and shades of gray. The background fabric is Moda Grunge in Metropolis Fog. 


Before I began this little improv piece, I had to think a bit about how to arrange the branches to give the appearance of trees close together. Once I got that figured out in my head, I enjoyed an afternoon or two of piecing. 

For the quilting, I just went with straight line piecing in the tree trunks, using thread to match. Then I decided to try to add some shadowy trees using grey thread in differing shades. 


I stitched these freehand, without doing any marking. It was pretty easy to do. Here's another view. 


I backed the quilt with the same Grunge as used on the front, and added a faced binding. 


More challenging than making the quilt itself was trying to get decent photos. Our weather has been very overcast and gloomy, so that really affected the light in my quilt room. 

I enjoyed this Patterns in Nature challenge, and I am enjoying my little stand of birch trees. I'm looking forward to the next challenge! 

Wendy

10 comments:

  1. I can see why you find these trees inspiring. I love this quilt, it really captures their quality and it's very peaceful to look at.

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    1. Thank you, Catherine. It was a fun challenge!

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  2. I love your original photo, I can see why you were inspired by it! Like Catherine, I think your quilt really captures the grey moodiness of the original. The shadow quilted trees were inspired :)

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    1. Thank you. It's a rather rudimentary challenge piece, but I enjoyed creating it. The shadow trees were a fun experiment.

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  3. Your quilt really shows the atmosphere and I feel the gloominess. Good job of recreating the scene. I love the color choice of monochrome.

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    1. Thanks, Barbara. I cannot wait to see what the next challenge theme will be!

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  5. I love this, Wendy. I especially like the grunge background and shadow trees you've quilted. It really gives a sense of depth :)

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    1. Thank you, Janine. I enjoyed this challenge!

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