Evolution of An Idea

This is an example of..."it was better in my head"...I'm officially calling it the "evolution of an idea!"  I'm not there yet and I see all kinds of ways I can improve on it...but I turned this quick experiment into something useful and sent it out into the world yesterday.

I've been thinking about ways to add pine trees into my stained glass fabric pieces.  The sketches looked OK....so before I left for my trip I played around with it.  Clearly a lot more thought and planning needs to go into this...but I thought I'd share my little experiment with you.

I wanted to try using a dark blue in stead of black hand dyed fabric for the tree branches and trunks....and I liked it. But I didn't like the dark blue around the pine...so I tried a contrasting green and really didn't like the way it looked.  

  

So I ripped it off....which was tough because it was REALLY fused on. But it was either try...or throw it away.  So I had to try.

Next I tried a new strategy for the pines. Using a long solid background I fused the wonky triangles on top then top-stitched around them in dark blue thread.  Hmmmm....maybe this could work.  I wished at this point I had stuck with the blues and greens...but I wasn't going to rip the purple off again.  It sat this way for a day or two while I packed and did chores and I contemplated just abandoning it and pretending that it never happened.  But....in honor of my decision to  put my experiments out there in the world....

....I added another tree to complete a rainbow scheme (maybe a little to loud) and...

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...turned it into a colorful Mother's Day mug rug/coaster for Margie.  The pines are intentionally wonky but maybe not wonky enough...they just look "off."  I could go on and on about the problems....but I bet no one else is going to get a Mother's Day card that can also be used as a coaster!  It's the thought that counts....right?  I AM going to let this idea evolve a bit more....I can do better.