Absolutely! I've kept a copy of Leslie's post for when I get the courage up
to do an art quilt. I've often thought of it, even got so far as cutting
some of the bits out but never made it further.

--
Sharon From Melbourne Australia (Queen of Down Under)
http://www.geocities.com/shazrules/index.html
Member of the Houston 2004 Party Animals
"Polly Esther" wrote in message
hlink.net...
We have created a monster? Us? Oh, come now, Leslie. That is just one of
our
favorite things.
Now I think we should get your quilt and your writing in a magazine.
Your tale of how you did it is very interesting and helpful. I have some
leaves to appliqué and I believe you've aimed me to a way that would work
better. Polly

"The HairyFacedOnes 'N Me" wrote
Jeepers. Now I'm gobsmacked at your reactions! Thank you, everybody,
for the amazing, flattering, wonderful comments you have made. I was so
pleased at how this little quilt came together, but this has really
reinforced what I hoped I achieved. Thank you from my heart to all of
you!

It's my own design. It started with the small leaf print fabric. I had
just a single FQ- it's cream with the various fall colored leaves spaced
about 1/2 in. apart. I used Wonder Under and bonded the entire FQ of
leaf print to a dull orange-ish fabric for a backing. Then I cut the
individual leaves. Yep, very time-consuming and very hard on my
arthritic hands. But so worth the effort.

I drew the tree on freezer paper. I drew a tree, then cut off some of
the branches to re-arrange them to look wind blown, then drew it again.
The base of the trunk was an inspiration- it didn't look right until I
threw in those strange, oddly curved lines. I rough cut out the tree
shape and then ironed the tree drawing to the right side of a brown
batik- it had interesting lines, shadings and movement in the batik. I
cut the tree on the drawn lines, used a glue stick on the wrong side of
the tree and glued it to the background fabric. Then I peeled off the
freezer paper. Doing it that way prevented the fragile skinny branches
and pointy tips from getting damaged or moved out of their correct
positions.

The background fabric is a boo-boo I made when experimenting with my
first attempt at dyeing fabric. It was such a strange mustard-y gold
with root beer brown splotches..... I didn't like it much and had
pushed it to the rear of my hand-dyes. I never thought I'd use it. ;-)

After gluing the tree in place, I outline stitched it using a straight
stitch- very close to the edge- with invisible smoke colored thread to
hold the edges down (raw edges). I added a 6 in. wide brown with black
texture print border to the left side. That was too wide, so I trimmed
it to 4 in. It looked much better and more balanced with the narrower
border. Then I sandwiched and pin basted the top to a wild brown/tan
print for backing using Warm & White for the batting. I buy the W&W by
the bolt at Joann's with a 50% off coupon. The gold area measures
17-3/4X19-1/4. That's just what it ended up when I squared it up after
quilting. I kept it as large as possible when I squared the corners and
sides.

I quilted the tree first using a walking foot. I started at the base
and went up to the tallest branch. I kept starting at the base and
going up to the tip of the branches, back down the branch and up the
next branch. This created a bark like texture to the trunk since the
lines of stitching are not straight or parallel. I used a deep brown
cotton thread on the tree- top and bobbin.

The body of the gold area was quilted with invisible thread in smoke
color using the walking foot- I kept the same brown cotton thread in the
bobbin. First, I marked it at a 45 degree angle and made a loose curve
which went into a loop and then a slight curve to the next loop- my
thoughts on how to represent those fickle autumn winds and the way
falling leaves dance around on it. As I quilted these I randomly stuck
a leaf under the needle and quilted a single line thru the leaf to
attach it. The leaves are raw edged and 3D. The loop-de-loop quilting
lines are 3-1/2 in. part. When they were done I added a medium size
meander quilting between the loop-de-loops and the tree branches using a
free motion foot with the feed dogs UP. I feel leaving the dogs up
gives me more control in the size of my free motion stitches- works for
me every time- so I don't fix what ain't broke! The first time I did
that was an accident- I forgot to drop the dogs! I quilted in the ditch
between the brown border and the gold background (back to the walking
foot there) then quilted medium meanders in the brown border (back to
the free motion foot). Then I added the binding to match the border.

The large leaves were found on several different autumn prints. I cut
chunks of Wonder Under larger than the individual leaf and ironed it to
the wrong side- then cut the leaf out on the edge of the leaf shape. I
removed the paper and bonded it to a similar colored fabric for the
backing and cut it out on the edge again. Using matching rayon thread
on top and matching cotton thread in the bobbin and my very favorite
stabilizer "Easy Stitch", I did a narrow satin stitch around the edge of
each leaf. Easy Stitch is cheap (bought a bolt from Big Horn for a very
reasonable price!) and feeds thru the machine extremely well. It has a
slightly "rubbery" feel so the machine can grip it very well and I think
it helps make my satin stitches extra smooth, well spaced and just plain
prettier. ;-) Another advantage is that when you tear it off after
doing your stitching you still get the icky little whiskers that
stabilizers are famous for, but with Easy Stitch, you can use a hot iron
on it and the whiskers disappear! I LOVE that about it. (This is
contrary to the manufacturer's instructions.... but it works for me.)

For some reason I'm doing a lot of work with trees lately! I made a
landscape quilt for my DS and DDIL's vow renewal ceremony this fall and
am working on another one..... that a friend has talked me out of by
offering to buy it. I'd rather give the darn thing away than try come
up with a price! Forget it, LN! LOL

Oh. Once I got the silly leaves cut out over a period of about a week
working a few hours at a time- the quilt only took about 8 hours. Then
the binding. That took HOURS! Ugh! Hand work.... :-P