All Tangled Up in Thread

  For the last couple of days, I've been working on the thread work for the project I started at Quilting By the Lake.  The first day, was a day of frustration.  It seemed that I was at war with the threads and they were easily winning every battle.  I probably took out as much as I sewed in!  Yesterday went much better with some work getting done on the tree.  Over the years, I developed my own style of adding texture to my pieces.  When I've done rough edge applique, the edges need to be finished somehow.  I find that a pretty satin stitch is way too uniform for my style.  So I started working on this scribble stitch as I call it.  After sewing down all the edges with matching thread, I go back little by little and scribble them in a bit more.  Some designs and shapes call for more - like the tree and bench while others will call for less like the horizon line.  

  With that done, I'll add more thread work and more scribbling and more colors to get just the right effect of texture to my pieces.  I don't ever use fusing since it seems to glue my fabric down too much.  So with this thread work, little puffs of fabric will emerge giving a pleasing and organic feel to the quilt.
  Over the years, I've collected a bunch of thread to get this feel.  Usually a piece will contain any combination of matte cotton, shiny rayon and pretty poly.  I've even been known to throw in some hand quilting in - which I might end up doing on this piece.