Finished Object: Peace Tree

Pattern: Peace Tree from The New Crewel
Materials: Kona Cotton fabric; DMC 2 ply crewel wool #8341 and #418
Techniques: Lots and lots of satin stitch, split stitch border

So one of my bestest friends brought me The New Crewel for Christmas last year off my Amazon wishlist.  I loved this book but never got around to making anything from it.  About June I went to my local needlework store and bought the supplies which quickly got stashed away in the pile of other things to do.  Finally after taking an embroidery workshop at Felt Club and seeing the gorgeous work of cauchy09 on Flickr I knew I was hooked.

I actually started on the sampler from the book, but what I really wanted was all the beautiful designs that drew me in the first place so unlike me I forewent the practice stage and dove into the Peace Tree pattern.  It was fairly quick and a good learning experience for satin stitch.  I got a little better at my blending to change direction once I read more of the instructions (eh hem…I would have know this if I finished the sampler…).

I blocked the work the traditional way as described in the book to get it nice and straight or at least as straight as possible because I noticed later that my outline work is a little crooked…woops!

Next I framed it using an Ikea frame and added a quote by John Muir to the bottom to break up the vast white space.  Many pieces of paper went up in flames trying to get this paper burning right, but this one got my stamp of approval

which resides on the back of the frame, stamped in permanent stamping ink.

Lastly, I leave you with just a perfect picture I snapped during my picture taking session.  It is perfect because it shows both my trees and the real trees of nature. It definitely brought me some peace and made the quote all that more befitting. 🙂

“Tug on anything at all and you’ll find it connected to everything else in the universe”

-John Muir