A Delightful Day of Work

So delightful was my time at the machine today that it hardly felt like work. The task at hand was satin stitching the edges of the tree trunks to attach them to the center panel of the pinwheel quilt. My freshly serviced machine hummed pleasantly while it stitched away along the gentle curves. My mind was free to wander a bit, and it decided that some of my feeling of well being was my comfort level with both the form of the birches and the technique I was using on them. It was affirmation that not only am I on the right track, but also starting to settle into a personal style. Funny that it is so much clearer now than before I moved, even though I've been working with birches off and on for at least 3 years and the satin stitching for about a year. I feel like a lot of detritus has dropped away with the relocation. Simply changing scenery doesn't guarantee improved clarity and lord knows I've had plenty of questions about my direction since landing here, so it was especially sweet to experience this mini-revelation.

I hadn't planned to secure the trunks this way, but after studying them on the background, I could see they needed more definition than a line of black quilting would give them. The satin stitching in black makes them quite bold which helps to match the boldness of those pinwheels. I use a Sulky tearaway stabilizer pinned underneath to keep the fabric from puckering. It really does tear away cleanly with little effort.