Appliqued Tree

As promised, here is how I created this:

1. The 'Grow With Me' fabric series has a print with a circle of trees. 
   
   I scanned the fabric on my home printer to my computer, saving it as a jpeg file. I did this because it created a higher resolution image than one taken with my PnS camera. 
2. Next, using a paint program I cut out the exact image needed, one tree, and pasted it onto a Word document. Using the rulers on the Word document, I shrunk/enlarged the tree until it was ~6". 
3. When printing I chose to print in black and white because colors weren't necessry.
4. Next, I cut out each part of the tree - the brown trunk, the dark green edges, and the light green edges.
5. The next few steps are typical of the applique process. 
1. Ironing on a fusible interface and then tracing the parts of the tree onto the fabrics.
2. Cutting out the traced pieces and fusing them onto a white fabric background.
3. Attaching stabilizer to the back of the white fabric to avoid fabric puckering and thread bunching
4. Choosing similar or complimentary color thread for each of the parts and using a zig zag stitch on my machine to permanently attach the pieces.
6. After finishing the applique process and feeling immensely proud of myself, I ironed interfacing to the back of the white fabric and attached the block to the back of my quilt.
7. The last step is to blind stitch the block into place.

Originally my plan was to have this be my practice block and then use fabrics within the fabric collection I used for the quilt. However, this turned out so endearing that I kept it, even with the mistake. There's this thing that I have where I think everything has to match and go by a pattern. So, it felt good to put something on the quilt that didn't match or go by the pattern.

Hope this was helpful. Feel free to ask questions and thanks for stopping by!

-Beatrice