My Riverside Trees art quilt is now finished and just needs to be edged.  This 30cm x 40cm quilt was done as trial ahead of making a larger version at 30″ x 40″ for the David Hockney Challenge.  It’s just as well I had the dummy run as there are a few things I have learnt while doing this project.

Firstly, I must start using a sketchbook…..I tend to launch straight into something and make it up as I go along.  The sky would have been different, and I would have been happier with it, if I had planned it before I started.

Secondly, I naively thought that using iron-on Vilene would mean I didn’t have to sew the trees in place…….yeah, right!   The more I handled the quilt the looser the trees became so they all had to stitched down.  This leads me on to the third thing I learnt which is “remember to breath” while free machine stitching!

The fourth thing I found was that organza and net, although looking very effective when layered, can also be problematic as loose fibres sometimes migrate between the layers and are very fiddly to remove.   My fabrics were simply laid in place, pinned and stitched, I’m guessing that if I had ironed them onto Bondaweb before stitching I could have avoided this happening.

The finished quilt