Woodland Walks ATCs

 

I love walking through woods. They have their own lovely smell (if it's a nice wood) don't you think? They deliver so much year-round as well - in February we have Snowdrops, April has Bluebells, there could be splashes of yellow from Primroses and Celandines throughout, or white from Wood Anemones. The colour of the canopy changes as the leaves mature at the start of the year - you go from a wintry brown nothingness to a zesty bright green splattering of new growth which gets darker and darker as the leaves grow and age, turning to fiery yellows, oranges, reds and browns by the Autumn. You can walk through the same wood every single day for a year and there would be something new to spot every time. 

There's a woodland near where I used to live which has the most amazing sense of calm about it. Nothing is rushed in a wood, the trees take their time and have their own pace, working with the weather and the seasons. It's a breathing place for me and the minute you enter it there is a sound of silence; the hustle and bustle of a nearby playground or lawn mower from the housing estate next door fades away and all you can hear is the faint rustling of leaves or the call of birds, perhaps a scratching and whispering of a mouse or rabbit or the chirp of an annoyed squirrel. 

I don't know whether I've managed to capture all of these thoughts and feelings in my Woodland Walks cards - perhaps strips of fabric, felt and thread isn't able to full convey these memories but it's what the cards remind me of when I look at them. 

I don't think these cards have the same level of details some of my other ones do but I was slightly pressed for time on them as I needed to cut out the August cards in the same hoop, but I love the textures in them. I have my fingers crossed that the loops of thread aren't too tall and that they will still qualify as a normal first-class letter thickness!! Otherwise, I may be bumping up the postage stamps to get them to whoever they are swapped with. 

The background is made of four layers of fabric. The top green layer I have done nothing with, it's for colour only. The leafy layer (with yellow in for shafts of sunlight through the canopy) has been lightly stitched with little straight stitches in the majority of green leaves but using a variegated thread so that the colour changes across the layer. French knots cover the edge of this fabric although, on some of the cards, you don't really notice them under the fluff.

The green layer underneath has been quickly textured with rows of running stitch and edged with bullion knots (gosh I love bullion knots!) and the bottom layer, my path through the woods has been accentuated with chunky horizontal straight stitches (three strands) to try and make it look more path-like, with some french knot 'fallen leaves' dotted through. 

The felt trees were added at the same time as the fabric background so that I didn't stitch underneath them and then plonk a trunk on top. They have also been simply stitched with blanket stitches working up each side of the trunk but at different widths and lengths to make it look more like bark. All of the cards have two trees on the far side of the path, stitched with one strand of thread, and one big tree in the foreground, stitched with two strands of thread, (which really helps to give a sense of perspective to the landscape design) although I ran out of the darker felt colour which is why one of the cards has two lighter trees at the back. 

The leafy foliage has been suggested with the use of a deconstructed fancy yarn. The yarn itself was from Hobbycraft and was basically a gorgeous green mix acrylic roving which had been loosely twisted and held together with a black thread. I have cut off the black thread and pulled apart the remaining strands, picking out the more green/yellow colours, and not so much of the dark green/blue colours, and stab stitching it down to keep it roughly in place. I considered adding beads to this layer for little pops of light and sparkle but thought it might be too much so kept it simple. 

The path is edged with another fancy yarn, a zesty green knitted tube, but I felt it didn't flow so well with the leaves so added in my loops of thread (which are just seed stitch basically, without pulling the thread all of the way through - the trick is to try and keep the height even and vary the direction of the loop) along the edge of the yarn. I've used two colours of Anchor coton perlé and I really like the way the colours mirror the roving. Using a combination of greens is something I love doing for woodland pieces because it really hints at the areas of light and shade you would naturally get in a wood. 

Straight stitch stems at the bottom of the nearest trunk help bed it in and give some grounding. Varying the length and angle of these stitches makes them look much more natural. 

So, fingers crossed these are postable!!