A Friday Finish

About a year and a half ago, I stitched a scene called Twelve Trees.  It's a scene from up on the hills at overlooking Blackstrap Lake, near Cedar Lodge.  There's this quirky line of planted trees - perfectly spaced but growing every-which-way.  Up the opposite side of the bank, there was a canola field on the horizon.  It was such a neat scene.  Wendy has it displayed at her store.  Every time I look at it, I am surprised at how much I like it!  I've always thought of redoing that one at a different size.  Hers is 3" by 9".  So I started one last weekend that is about 5.5" x 11".

work in progress... Should I?  Shouldn't I?

There's the background, a.k.a. the ugly phase.  I don't even like showing it on the blog.  This one in fact felt so ick at this stage that I was eyeballing the garbage can.  I nearly tossed it.  The thought went through my head, 'What if I do hours of hand stitching and it still sucks?  What a waste of time that will be!'

I decided at the least to start the structures of the trees to see if things were worth saving.  I stitched little marks, all spaced evenly apart.  This is where the trees come out of the ground.  I actually took a ruler out and held it against the photo just to see.  Sure enough, these were mathematically planted.  I think that's the draw for me with this scene.  It's so comical, not to mention the fact that the trees are so small in stature that they can't possibly provide much of a windbreak high up on that hill.

photo of twelve trees by Cedar Lodge overlooking Blackstrap Lake (yes - overly brightened for my viewing pleasure)

Well it worked!  I liked the trees - they brought the charm to the piece and i was able to spend the rest of the day stitching purple alfalfa and bunches of yellow sweet clover into the lower third.  I'm done!

Twelve Trees #2, 2013

Thank GOODNESS I didn't throw it out.  It's a really great piece.  That'll teach me...