Free Motion Challenge - Susan

This month at SewCalGal
Free Motion Challenge - we have a bonus tutorial by
Susan Brubaker Knapp! I have been following Susan's
blog Blue Moon River
for quite some time. Please visit her blog - one of my favorite
pieces that Susan did is "Friso" (the cat)! Stunning work!
She is also a Facebook friend.
You may also be familiar with her work in Quilting Arts Magazine.

Our challenge is to take some photos in Macro
mode (no problem here) and then print and
trace the obvious lines onto cloth. This will
be our original quilting design! I love this idea!

Looking through my photos; I can't decide which
0ne to use first. I want something simple as this
will be a "test".
I chose the mushrooms:


One day after it rained; I walked around the
garden with my camera and spotted some
very unusual fungi. I had never seen this
type before and they were very tiny. I also
found a couple of unusual slugs - slightly
pink in color and also very tiny.




This is the little group of mushrooms that I decided to use
for my project.





As the color is very light; I had difficulty finding the lines.
(my light box is in storage and I used the sliding glass
doors to trace the photo)

I thought that maybe it would be easier to trace
if I turned the photo into a black and white. Which
I did in photoshop.




This was a little easier to trace.

I used a washable pen to trace the design on one
of my hand dyed fabrics.


This is my first attempt. I didn't like the variegated thread
on this fabric. The design kinda gets lost if you stand
a distance away.


For test #2 - I used the same fabric but with black thread...


First of all - I think that the black thread shows more
of your mistakes. The second thing is - (-: I tried to
imitate the mulch and it didn't translate too well
into stitch.

So I tried using a lighter fabric and again the
black thread... test #3You can see more clearly where I back tracked using
the black thread. Also my mushrooms look like flowers!

I will still use this design - I need to get my lightbox!

This is a very fun project! Thanks Susan!

I will probably add more during the month!