Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Autumn in Southeast Texas

My piece was inspired by a tree I saw last spring while fishing at Toledo Bend in East Texas. It was the curliest tree I had ever seen and all the roots were on top of the ground. My daughter was with me and had her camera but she wouldn't take a picture because she said it looked too scary.
Southeast Texas doesn't have much of an autumn. Our grass doesn't even turn brown until the first frost and we may not even get that until February. Some years it doesn't even get that cold. We don't have the beautiful fall colors that other parts of the country have, but in the fall we have the most beautiful skies. This is my interpretation of the fall colors.
My piece is 12"x12 1/2". I used cotton fabrics and cotton batting. The sky fabric is one that I hand dyed. I fused the pieces with wonder under and quilted it with rayon threads. My 3D elements are the leaves. Although you cannot see them, they are held down by the quilting and stick up off the fabric backing. I fused the binding. All in all, it was a fun piece to do.

5 comments:

Roberta Ranney said...

Sherry - your tree is great. It does look a bit other-worldly. I think the way you have echoed its spiraling limbs gives the piece a feeling of autumn breezes blowing the last late leaves off the tree.

I think a different binding might have enhanced the quilt - perhaps the fabric you have used for the ground or the tree fabric. Something about the little dots seems a bit distracting to me.

Roberta

Marlene said...

It works! Like the quilting of the sky...adds to the feeling of the wind blowing. Have to agree with Roberta on the choice of binding fabric, but your binding is done well....I need to look over your shoulder!

marlene

CalicoDaydreams said...

Your whimiscal tree has such life! It looks like it is dancing in the breeze.

I must agree with the others that a different binding would make the quilt better~ like the brown you used for the tree.

The leaves are great too! The colors and the way some of them are floating in the wind.

Cynthia Ann Morgan said...

Hi Sherry, I made a curly tree once too...so I had an immediate affection for your piece. The flying leaves are colorful and successfully add to the depth as does the shading in the ground fabrics. The only comment I would have that the tree is pretty much centered in the middle and it's fairly symmetrical on both sides of the tree...it might be a bit more interesting to take to off to one side a little and/or make it non-symmetrical with more or larger/longer branches on one of the sides. Just a thought...it's charming as it is!
Cynthia

laura west kong said...

Very charming tree! and you've depicted it to be not scary at all. I agree about the wonderful quilting in the sky and the choice of binding fabric. You could even take a skinny piece of the dark tree brown and bind over the top so it looks like a narrow border and narrow binding.

I really how the leaves, their different shapes suggest the different angles you'd see as they're floating down, and great idea on loosely attaching them rather than fusing them down. You could possibly add a few more so the shape of the falling leaves against the blue sky is more of a triangle than a straight rectangle.

Great choice of fabric for the ground and great job on a wonderful quilt!