Trees...

....with a nod to blue.

I had a wonderful day with my sisters.....and I may share more about that another day....but it's getting late.  And the silhouette of this tree against the lovely evening sky is the perfect lead in to Becky's accordion book.

Becky's booklet was the first one that came to me....and her theme was trees....with a nod to blue.  Right up my alley.

Becky created a lovely cover with a stenciled tree all decked out in punched petals for leaves. I learned that the punched petals originally came from me during one of her visits....that was fun!  I've always loved this quote!

After a sleepless night thinking obsessing about trees.....I landed on a stitched watercolor.  

I just jumped in stitching outlines of trees....using this decorative stitch on my machine for one side of the tree. In hindsight I wish I would have lightly sketched out my design first.

I stitched a few branch lines to connect the trees...creating a stained glass effect.  Then I started watercoloring the spaces with various shades of blues.

So far so good. I was glad I used dark blue thread rather than black.

There were lots of starts and stops with the stitching.  I pulled all the threads to the back...and taped them down with washi tape because I didn't want any knots. It's a mess....but it all lays nice and flat.

I added a little watercolor texture to the trees.....a few white snow dots...and fused some fabric swatches with subtle words on it to give some interest to the snowy ground. (I did the piece in the winter) I protected the piece with release paper when fusing down the fabric.

I was pretty happy with the result....

I thought it fit the theme of trees...with a nod to blue pretty well.

I used a similar design for my quote page....but used colored pencil this time.  

My quote came from the book Forest Bathing Retreat, Find Wholeness in the Company of Trees by Hannah Fries

"In an ongoing journey, this reaching out, and out again. And the universe with all its patterns and chaos and myriad threads of connection, is both terrifying and wondrous. Take a page from the trees: focus on being both rooted in the earth and searching among the stars."  Hannah Fries 

Here are all the blue trees.

Tracie's page...and her quote:

"Preserve and cherish the Pale blue dot...

the only home we've ever known." Carl Sagan

Brenda's page....and her inspiration.

Inspired by the work of Konstantin Dimopoulos, "The Blue Trees" 

project was featured in more than 14 cities around the world.