This is the piece I completed today. It is called Pinon Tree. I made the background quite some time ago with torn paper stencils and oil paint sticks. My plan had been to do just a bit of free motion stitching on the background and it would be done. However, I didn’t iron my fabric before applying the paint sticks and there was a big crease in the sky which then caught more paint than the rest of the sky. So, there was a big ugly mark in the middle of the sky. So I finally decided to cover the mark with the tree. That’s why the branch goes all the way across the piece.

You can see the mark if you look between the branches on left hand side.

Here’s a close up. I think that the leaves needed more contrast between the colors. I used three different color of threads for the leaves but you can barely tell it. I needed a darker color to give the leaves a bit more depth. This piece took over 5 hours to complete because of the dense stitching on the trunk. So much for doing a simple piece! Note to self – iron it anyway, even if you’re in a hurry.