Trees - BOW

TREES

by: Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)

THINK that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

 

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

 

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

 

A tree that may in Summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

 

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

 

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

 

I love this poem, had to recite it when I was in 7th grade as an English assignment. Funny how I remember that. Anyway, this poem has always stuck with me and cultivated by fascination with trees in nature.
That said, I've developed a new, free BOW (Block of the Week). This one involves raw edge applique which means using your favorite adhesive (Steam-a-seam, Heat-n-Bond or whatever).
Raw edge applique is where you stitch very close to the edge of your project which I'll demo in the first design.
For this BOW project which will consist of four blocks, you might need: 

 

• small scissors
• your favorite adhesive
• DMC floss or your favorite hand embroidery floss
• embroidery needles
• light-box (this could be standing at a window to see through to the design)
• sewing machine
• rotary cutter and cutting mat
• iron, ironing board and non-stick pressing mat
• pencil
• permanent marking pen and removable marking pen
• fabrics: assorted tone-on-tones, shades of green, browns, grays
• assorted fabrics from your stash - these will be no more than 7 inch square pieces

I've probably listed more than you'll need but this gives you an idea of what I use when working on these kinds of projects.

Block #1

I decided that I did not want a square quilt so my backgrounds measure

10 1/2/ by 12 1/2

I've traced off my tree trunk and am auditioning fabrics. As most of you know, I love landscaping type fabrics, so I have many pieces of varied types but any shade of brown will work.

The top fabric is too light so I chose this next one.

Now, I'm onto auditioning tree foliage. You may be wondering why I hadn't already pulled my chosen fabrics......it's simple, I tend to change my mind "often" so it's easier for me to do it this way.

The above one it kind of sickly but the next one speaks to me.......LOL

I added a small portion of ground to lend interest.

Here you can see how close to the edge the stitching needs to be. I use a very thin needle in my machine. A 60/8 Schmetz Microtex

Using the light box again, I've drawn, in removable marking pen, the branches to be hand stitched with floss.

You may copy/paste, enlarge/shrink to your delight!!