Quilt Art: Uncle Ray's Place

My husband, Ernie, has a big family reunion every year in far southern Ilinois.  It's held on an acreage that has been in his family for generations.  Uncle Ray built a pavillion, enclosed on 3 sides and landscaped the area with beautiful flowers.  He works really hard each summer getting everything in top shape for the September get-together.  One year, as a thank-you, I created this wall-hanging from panoramic photos I had taken.

 This wall hanging is done in raw-edge applique, embellished with thread painting and decorative yarns/threads.  I didn't use any pattern for this---I just eye-balled it, as they say.  Doing it this way gives it more of a folk-art look, which I like. What I really wanted to do was experiment with texture.  Texture draws people into the piece, and touching is allowed on my quilts.

The pavillion is has cedar siding, so I used a scrap of wide-wale corduroy to make mine.  I used a satin stitch around the roof line and on the appliqued windows.  For the flag, I had some flag-print fabric from which I cut a little flag and folded it as it hung from the flag pole (no breeze down there on that hot summer day!)

The trees on the hillside are done in a variety of batiks, commercial prints, and maybe a hand-dyed cotton or 2.  I cut basic blob shapes similar to what I saw in the picture, then did various free-form stitching around the edges---trying to soften them a bit.  Then I thread painted (a machine technique I've posted a tutorial for) the trunks and branches with various shades of brown embroidery thread.  I also thread painted some of the flowers in the garden, as well s the 2 bushes behind the fence.

 The other, very textured flowers and greenery are made by couching decorative threads.  I used long tweezers  (like what come with a serger, or what you use in surgery if you, dear reader, happen to be a surgeon) to hold the threads/yarns in place as I free-motion stitch them into place with clear nylon thread.  Bunching and scrunching the yarns give a very full look, which also screams "feel me"----so you may not want to do this if you don't want people touching your wall hangings!