Not Seeing the Trees for the Wood

  

I was driving along looking at all of the different trees to see what sort of trunk would be best for displaying my leather quilts and wondering how to courier them to a show at a reasonable price. Suddenly I struck me that I was barking up the wrong tree - so to speak. I realised that what I really needed would be something like foam bolster cushions. Obviously, they could not simply be plain foam columns on which to display the quilts. I decided that they would be covered with striated undulating patchwork strips that would represent the effect of real bark. I am still not sure whether the curved strips will run horizontally or vertically but I did have a go at using very skinny strips so I know it can be done. 

I had problem sourcing neutral and grey solid fabric to look like silver birch trees. It seems that the entire Modern Quilt Movement has bought all of it. I tried dyeing some cotton sateen but the colours were too strong. I found some suitable bits in my stash and ordered some Oakshott in pale green, light grey and a very rich pinky-red since that is the colour of some of the birch branches. It would now seem that I am intending to use strips that match the gemstones, rather than realistic tree bark colours.

Sewing the gemstones on has taken me rather a long time but they are so gorgeous that it has been really enjoyable. I may have discovered a new fascination for buying beads on Ebay and I am now waiting for a couple of small packages that are coming all the way from China.

I had quite a varied week: teaching in a small village school one day and visiting a longarmer the next day to talk about tension and timing. I was annoyed that I had to leave before her machine was all completely fixed to meet my children from school but she managed to get it all sorted out and running smoothly again. 

I managed to get some admin done and then spent a while writing a 1000 word essay on myself as a profile to send into the FOQ catalogue. However, when I reread the email I saw that I should only have written 100 words so I will need to do a little bit of an edit on that piece.  I suppose I could do that while I make notes to decide whether it might be possible to turn the long overdue Yurt Book into an Ebook...

I started another leather quilt with Norse birds as the main motif but I am not yet convinced that it should form part of the tree series. I am wondering whether all of those should have celtic-style circles like the white goatskin - all surrounded by more gems and beads I expect!