Here we are once again, continuing on our funny farm journey. The farm is one that recalls fond memories of my childhood. We had a small farm then, on acreage that had been cleared, all of which was surrounded by deep forest. It bordered on private land and also some that was part of the Seattle watershed, so the tree's were thick and tall and the forest paths shadowed and delightful. I spent many happy days playing in the forest and helping with farm chores. Feeding the chickens and ducks, riding the horses, and feeding and milking our cow. We had a calico cat and several dogs. My favorite dog however was not a tiny little lap dog, like on this quilt, but was a great big black Newfoundland. I chose not to put him on the quilt, as he was a massive dog and dwarfed all of us. But hey, I must not keep dithering here, but get on with this blog post, or I'll never get it done...so I will continue...
To start things off, I had some old Christmas-tree fabric in my stash and thought it would add some perspective to my quilt, as the tree's were much smaller than those in the foreground. I decided to just ink them with my permanent markers to give the tree's some color, thinking that would suffice to cover the white on the tree's. I proceeded to stitch patches of these tree's onto my quilt, up on the top right corner, creating I hoped, the look of a small tree farm, only to discover that I didn't much like them at all. I didn't want to take them off, after all of the hard work of sewing them on, but what could I do?
After watching my good friend Marion, over at Marion's World on youtube, and how she just stitches away making the most delightful things. I hit upon the idea of stitching over the tree's with thread. I had never done this before, but thought in for a penny in for a pound, and went for it. If I didn't like it later I told myself, I could remove them all and start over. Well, I can tell you I was in for a chore. I slogged away at this group, and was happy with the orange hemlocks, but not so much with the firs. I simply didn't know what I was doing or how to improve it, so stopped and decided to give it a thinking over before doing some more. Don't those firs look a right mess?! ARGH!!!
Since I wasn't happy with the tree's, at least not over the moon about them. I decided to give my sore fingers a rest, and move on to more interesting things I could put on my farm quilt. For some reason, I felt in the mood to try my hand at drawing goats. I've never drawn a goat, but hey if you never try, you'll never know if you can or not, right?! We never had goats when I was a kid, but these bring to mind the pygmy goats my sister had after she got married. They were so adorable, but man oh man were they crazy! They could climb anything and were better at escaping than Houdini.
This is my attempt at a billy goat. He took a few attempts to get him right, at least as right as I wanted. I won't bore you with my other crumpled up scribble's. I wanted him to be as silly looking as the sheep and cow look, and I think I succeeded.
It took just a bit more fiddling to make a nanny goat, by modifying the billy goat sketch. She is a pill is that one. She likes nothing better than to get into the tulips. I haven't settled on their names yet, it may be something like Buford and Penelope?!
It didn't take a lot to get them traced onto the white cotton sheeting, with the aid of window and sunlight, and soon had them ready for stitching. Don't they make a hilarious pair?!
I decided to put them in one of my small embroidery hoops as the large roller frame is very cumbersome to work with. In trying to figure out how I was going to do his coat I hit upon the idea of using homespun wool yarn. I have had this roll for a long time, and I think it is one that my daughter gave me, or it maybe something that was given me by the ladies of the fibers guild I belonged to years ago. Time has erased the memory of who exactly gave me this. Anyway, it was perfect for what I needed. There was only one problem, the wool would not go through the layers of fabric like I wanted. I puzzled over what to do, and decided I would try couching it down on the top of the cloth using regular sewing thread. This worked like a charm.
I also found that if I over twisted the wool yarn it would curl up making long hanks like a goats coat. It meant that I would be covering up some of the original details of the goat drawing, but that was fine by me. One must be willing to let things evolve sometimes, and in this case it was the right choice.
Please pardon me, but I got so into this crazy goat project, that I forgot to take pictures as I was going along. His face and ears are pale brown embroidery thread fill in stitches, his bell is a piece of felt and a bit of trim for the cord around his neck. The clanger for his bell is a tiny red felt ball, that I have a bag of. They are all different colors and they sure come in handy for projects. His horns are once again the dark brown wool, which I laid in strands, couched down with dark thread, then went over with the paler brown embroidery thread. A little embroidery thread in white and blue for the eyes, and pale pink in the ears was all he needed to fill in his design. Then I accented him around the edges using black embroidery thread. He came out so well, it made me laugh. He just looks so full of mischief. I think his toothy grin is epic!
Once I had the billy goat done, it was time to do the same thing to the nanny goat. I didn't have any wool yarn in the right color and was getting desperate, when I chanced upon this roll of commercial yarn I had. It was of course in a completely different stash, as I keep my woolens separate from my synthetics. I was so glad it hadn't been given away in one of the numerous purges I have had to do over the years. What a relief, so I got right to it.
She was a challenge all her own, but I soon had her done. The tulips and her flowers were a right royal pain, being so tiny. I didn't like the regular embroidery thread for the flowers around her neck, so tried using my cotton crewel thread. It turned out to be just what I needed. Thanks to an antique store near me, I have all the embroidery and crewel threads I think I'll ever need. They sold me a gallon bag, crammed tight with both types of thread for $4.00. They were in every color of the rainbow, so how could I pass them up?!
Here are my silly goats in position on the quilt, just waiting to be stitched down. He is standing among the small tree farm on the right side of the quilt, and she is standing on the left. Let us not forget where we came in, and that is with those thread stitched tree's that were my bane.
Here I have decided the exact location of my goats and have pinned them down. Probably the only way to keep them from wandering off and getting into more mischief. That he goat especially looks like he is up to no good. Just what is he looking at anyway? That my friends you will find out on our next episode.
But in the meantime, before we leave for today, we must address the tree's. All twenty nine of them. At the first I didn't know exactly how I was going to do these tree's. But as time went on I found that using four different colors of embroidery thread in the needle gave me exactly what I wanted for texture and color. You might think, since I didn't like the first few tree's, that I would take them out and do them over. Nope! I decided since this quilt is first and foremost a challenge quilt, to see what I can do, I will just leave those tree's for folks to see the progress and the difference. That and the thought of taking that out and doing it over just depressed me no end. I am right tired of sewing tree's. At least those kind.
As in many things, as you keep doing a thing you get a bit better at it. I can't say I will ever try making tree's like this again tho, mostly because it killed my fingers. I have trouble wearing a thimble and having to keep the thread just sewn into the surface layer of the quilt, and not through to the back really made for a struggle. It made sores on my finger tips, so I had to stop and let them heal, and I thought I would never get them done. However, the end result was very satisfying. When you consider that the tallest tree in the group is only two inches and the stitches on the orange hemlocks are only 3/16 ths., of an inch, you get some idea as to the difficulty. To say nothing of the tedium. Which is why I decided to do a couple of tree's a day, while designing and doing the goats. It was so much easier on my fingers. The hemlocks I did with two different colored threads in the needle, and the other tree's I did with four different colored threads in the needle. I got real crazy towards the end, and made up whatever colored tree's I thought would be interesting, and would bring contrast. After all it's an imaginary farm, isn't it?! lol
I hope you have enjoyed this latest installment of Freddie Finklemeyers funny forest farm. Stay tuned for the next episode, which hopefully is coming soon. It takes a bit of doing, sorting, sizing, and editing pictures. I do have a bit more done and ready to go up, but the quilt itself is far from done. I need to stop looking at it like, what else can I put on this thing?! ha ha ha
May God give you all a wonderful, peaceful, and delightful day!
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