TREES

The last set of pages from the Fabric Book Round Robin are due to be posted home to their owner Chriss in Newcastle in England. I have put the finishing touches to my contribution, and it will be with a great deal of sadness that I will say goodbye to them, and to this wonderful experience of sharing a project with 7 other fabric and mixed media artists. I only know these ladies "on-line", although I did meet with one, Diana from Wellington, many years ago.

Chriss's theme was "Trees", which was an easy and broad enough topic...however, there were a lot of choices to make, plus the challenge of producing something a little different from the other 7 who had already worked on the book.

For the first page I had the idea of making an image of a row of tree trunks, using piecing, with some texture from some appliqued yarns. The images of branches in between the trunks are from an Op shop find...a blouse with sepia photographic images of trees all over it!

Forgive me that I still have my tacking stitches showing. You may be surprised to know that I rarely do any tacking, preferring to "wing"it. But being someone else's work probably made me take a little more care. The page turned out to have a real "Australian bush" flavour, which I had not really intended. The hand-dyed fabric (done by me many moons ago) in the border has added to this effect. However, I am sure Chriss will enjoy the "downunder" feel of the page.

The second page is far more my style and genre, with a needlefelted tree, using silk fibres and other yarns, and embellished with beads.

My scanner has produced some refractions in the background, which are not really there. However, I did produce it by feeding some silk through my printer for an image of some Norfolk bush. As the silk had not been pre-treated, only the faintest image appeared, and it gives it a delightfully misty and hazy effect. Yet another happy accident! I used a fresher green (another of my hand-dyes) for the border, more like the lovely clear greens of a Norfolk Island spring!!

I said I was really sorry this project is coming to an end. But I can at least look forward to receiving my own "Tea Parties" book back in the next few weeks. Then I can really ooh and aah and show it off.

The group is planning another project for next year, which promises to be even more challenging.