Paper tree.

The day that the 'Big Shot' machine came to my craft group I took in my painted papers and had
this paper tree embossed.

The piece of fabric below is linen - so far all the other pieces I've used for the book are calico. The linen was very floppy but when I painted it with the floor polish it really firmed up.

 I could see a faint tree shape on the right hand side.

 I've painted over it with the Koh-I-Nor dyes. I dropped some blobs of water at the base of the tree to give me some mushroom shapes - and on the left hand side I did the same. 

I like having the shapes to work with. I think I'll put a foxglove there.

I cut the paper tree out and I'm going to place it partly over the painted tree, but first I'm going to do some stitching.

I've cut some strips from a sheer that frays easily and then machine embroidered them on to the trunk of the tree.

I didn't put this in a hoop and
as I stitched it pulled tighter and tighter and the linen was gathering up badly.

I've had to cut through most of the stitches to ease it out flat again. It looks ok but now I think I'll have to iron a piece of Bondaweb on the back to hold it all in place.

Not very impressed with this piece of stitching but
it'll get covered up with some paper leaves.





Went for a walk today at Shaw's Bridge. Picked up the leaflet at The Lock Keeper's Cottage.
Then I came home and stitched this lot!