tree hugger - with no fresh snow

There is a blog hop today hosted by seams to be sewn. The challenge was to do something about winter and to use at least one fabric that is not cotton. I live in Vermont and this is the 2nd winter in a row that we have gotten little to no snow. It is grey and brown around here. So I made this:

Tree hugger - 13"x18"

I love snow - it seems to insulate trees and wildlife from the cold temps.

This year it's so cold the trees have to hug themselves and are shivering to keep warm!

I realize this is an unusual quilt but I had so much fun making it. The only cotton used was the muted background and the hands and face. For batting I used felt (not cotton)

What got me going on this was burning or melting polyester sheer fabrics.

You CAREFULLY take your fabric, in my case strips of brown sheer and hold it over (not in) a candle flame. Hover over the flame until it starts to melt and curl. Keep a bowl of water handy because it probablly will catch on fire but just blow it out or dunk it. Not all fabrics will melt - some will just catch on fire but the ones that do curl and or get this beatiful torn edge effect. It must be polyester and I seem to have the best luck with sheer fabrics so keep that in mind if you try this.
Perfect for tree bark!

So to make my tree I first cut a tree like trunk and laid out some velvety strips down first and then kept adding more and more, using the melted and burnt strips, sewing them down as I went. First I tried glueing them down but the poly sheers do not stick well so, sew it down I did. I found a background that was muted and no snow winter looking and laid that out.

The hands were first sketched out with pencil and then a fine black sharpie. Fusible pressed to the back, paper taken off and then pressed to a wool felt. In hindsight I should not have used the felt. It made the hands to thick and the dark felt shows to much if you look closely at the hands.

The face is a purchased fabric that has faces already painted on so I traced around the head to get the size for the hole and cut it out. Then placed the hands and pinned down for quilting.

The hole ended up being to big - mistake? Hell no! Not in art quilting land!

A design opportunity!

I then proceeded to add to that face area that was to big - all kinds of funky yarns and wool fibers that I have in my stash. 

All of this was sewn down on my sewing machine and the hands were sewn down as well.

The background was free motion quilted and a facing was added to finish.

I love how he came out and thank you to Marian at Seams to be Sewn for having the blog hop or this tree hugger may never have been born.

Click on the button on the top right of this blog to go see the other bloggers for today.
and there is a giveaway!
a cute kit to make this felted wool block

this may be the only way to see snow this year is to make it - lol!

a Rafflecopter giveaway