little house in the woods

Here is the project I made for Allegory's hoop-la-la swap. I was going to wait until I received mine and blog about both at once, but if it's headed from overseas it could be a while yet and I'd like to post this fall-themed project before the snow hits!

My partner was Cori, who blogs over at Let's Eat Grandpa. She's an editor and a ninja and incredibly creative, go check her out (but come right back, or else!). I got started back when the leaves were just beginning to change color, which inspired me to pull this scrap piece of Fall Trees in terracotta, a Bella print by Windham Fabrics.

From there I grabbed a few scraps and some embroidery floss and posted this picture to the Flickr group for feedback. Cori said she loved my idea of a little house in the woods, which was good news because I had had my heart set on it by that point! I did raw-edge applique, attaching the pieces with a washable glue stick before stitching them down by machine.

I used fusible interfacing on all of the pieces, including the background, to lessen the transparency of the fabrics and to give it a more stable feel. There's also a layer of batting on the back. Then I added some bits of embroidery here and there just to pull it all together.

There's a liberated feel to it, what with the frayed edges and wonky stitching and all. I figured it would look fine in the end, and while there are trouble spots (think right there in the trunk between the bottom limbs on the tree to the right... ick!) I really love how it turned out.

I finished it off by hot-gluing some yellow duck cloth to the back and orange ric rac around the outside. Then I wrote on the back with one of those ink pens meant for fabric. Finding my hot glue gun was quite an ordeal, it hadn't been used in years and was in the very last place I looked (ha, isn't it always?!).

It actually hurt a little to part with this, I was very much in love with it by the time I was done! I actually entertained the thought of making another one for myself, but there isn't enough left of the tree fabric for me to do that, what a bummer. Here's hoping Cori finds a nice spot for it in her home, I'm sure she will!

I'm linking up with Quilt Story for Fabric Tuesday, go have a look around!