eight by eight

Dear Blair,

Well, here it is: NEW*.

Except for the pale green button you sent, which was supposed to go on the pale leaf sticking straight up on the right side, only last night I looked away for two seconds to thread my needle & when I looked back , ready to stitch it in place, it had completely vanished. But believe me when I say that that there’s an imaginary pale green button right there.

As I’ve said, very early on I got stuck on a version of the postcard you included very early on, a branch half-covered by snow, tiny green leaves poking through. I liked the imagery, plus it seemed like a good way to pull together the colors you sent: green, blue, peach, brown. The idea of the January package I sent you was also very obviously lingering over the entire project, too, since everything I added was white or ivory. (This was a complication I did not expect — I had such a clear idea for the January box I put together that it was hard to approach the materials you sent me in a completely fresh way. I’m going to keep that in mind in future.)

I’ve never done much with appliqué before, so putting the branch together was my favorite part of this project. I love the way the stitched woodgrain turned out.

I did a little bit of hand quilting in green under the branch (with poly batting to keep things as puffy as possible), then layered two kinds of white tulle (sparkly & regular) & did some machine quilting over the top of that, randomly bunching to try & get a mounded sort of look. I got about halfway to the look I had in my head, which isn’t bad for the first time out, I don’t think. I maybe should have put some more beading on, though.

I quilted the remaining white space pretty heavily, with a few lines of echo quilting around the top of the branch & leaves, then random loops for the rest. There was a lot of white space left; 8″ square seems so small until you have to fill it, turns out.

Next month I’m definitely paying more attention to scale. Scale, & maybe some more woodgrain.

*Here’s most of it, anyway — I posted larger images than usual for the big reveal but looks like our template cuts off the sides so be sure to click the pictures for full size or check them out on the 8×8 flickr.