This is all kind of like “Karate Kid” the original version where Mr. Miagi is teaching Daniel karate by having him do a variety of tasks – the whole results from assembling the parts. Creating a landscape quilt is like that – many small techniques that get incorporated into a larger whole.

We worked on “cobweb lace” – you cut fabric into rather small pieces (using a pinking rotary cutter blade), lay them on a piece of cling wrap, place a piece of cling wrap over them, hoop the three layers, and free motion stitch on top of that. You remove the cling wrap by placing the piece you’ve just created between two pieces of paper and press with a hot iron.

What you have is a potential tree. Place one or more of these together you could have a denser tree or a shrub.

Second technique: zigzag free motion – that gives you a longer stitch because the needle is moving as well as the fabric – great for grass, or tree trunks. My problem is that the sewing machine I brought is a quilting machine and it only does a straight stitch! So I tried it out on one of the other gal’s machines.

Third technique: paint fabric dye on paper, let it dry, then press (paint side down) on a poly-cotton blend fabric – a sky.

So with these three techniques I made my first sample thread painting:

Not perfect, but pretty good for a first go.

It was a gorgeous Nova Scotia September day, today. I took a few moments after class this afternoon to capture a couple of images of Lunenburg: