My Last post was about the quilts that I recently had appraised.  I ended the post with a tease of the last quilt .  Here is the finished quilt.

I worked on the quilt off and on for 5 years.  I kept getting involved in other quilts and putting off finishing this one.  This  past winter I decided it was time to finish it.

The quilt was inspired by trees on winter day, looking out the window at the interesting shapes of the trees against the sky. I took a picture and based the design on that.  I wish I could find that picture but it didn’t get  transferred to the new computer.

I bought some “sky” fabric and some light blue grey fabric and got started by cutting branches and limbs out and attaching by applique.  My applique method was what I knew how to do at the time.  I pressed under the seam allowances and hand sewed them on with a very small blanket stitch in matching thread.

I had seen “landscape” quilts done with raw edge applique and machine stitching, and glue, and markers, but I wanted to do it all by hand, and I wanted a quilt that could be used, not just a wall hanging. This quilt is 78″ x 94″

I added the trees in layers.  After I got one color done I went to the store and picked out the next fabric and added the next layer.  This was done with no pattern just the image from the picture I took.  I cut a piece, put it in place, and adjusted it to look how I saw it in my head then sewed it on.

As I worked I added darker fabrics creating depth.

This is the point where I got stuck.  In the picture I took the trees had snow on them. I tried adding snow and I hated it, I thought it looked out-of-place.  I thought it might be that I needed more snow….that didn’t work.  The snow was destroying the simplicity of the lines.  I didn’t want the tress to look too literal.  I was after the impression of the lines and forms of the tress and I felt that the snow was taking away from that.  So I stopped working on it and moved on to another project. 

2 or 3 quilts later I added the borders and removed the snow and added another layer of trees.  I made the borders with the same fabric as the trees.

I used the same fabrics for the binding as well.

After I got the top finished it sat again for a while waiting to be  hand quilted.  It took me a long time to do all the hand quilting. In some areas the fabric is several layers thick where the trees overlap…hard to get a needle through and make a decent quilting stitch!

I am so glad that I finally made myself finish it!

The insurance appraisal was $5,100….but the truth is to me it is priceless.

Happy Quilting!

Tim