3 Dimensional Palm Trees @ Quilting Arts Open Studios



One of my most favorite things about festival is doing Open Studio demos at the Quilting Arts booth. I love connecting and reconnecting with folks and sharing new ideas. At last year's Open Studios, I demonstrated how to make canopy trees like the one you see on the far right in the photo above. This year, I opted to carry that idea a step further by showing how you can make 3 dimensional palm trees out of lutradur and lace.  I began by experimenting with different weights of lutradur, specifically light and heavy weight lutradur. Then to change things up a bit, I added some interfacing. I painted sheets of both lutradur and interfacing with acrylic textile paints and used Mistyfuse Transdoodle sheets to transfer the palm frond patterns onto the painted sheets. In order to clearly see the stitching, I used heavy weight threads such as Madiera Supertwist, Wonderfil Dazzle and Superior Razzle Dazzle 8 wt thread in the bobbin to stitch the palm fronds. Laying a copper wire along the central vein of the leaf allows for shaping and sculpting of the leaves. The copper wire was couched by hand using yarn all along the central vein. The fronds make for wonderful fans also and I will be looking into this idea soon. The tree trunk was wrapped in lace and I am also planning to add some lights to the trunk. I think it will  make a great decorative night light! I will be posting photos soon of the completed tree. And perhaps by that time, I will have also had a chance to play with making some cool fans from lutradur and lace. I'm thinking some peacock designs would be pretty cool! Love playing with lutradur and now I am thinking about incorporating Misty Fuse and velvets/lace. So much fun!