Winter Tree Line

I couldn't escape the landscape ideas for this color palette -- I am just surrounded by too much brown, blue and sage outside my windows.  Okay, the  brown is more gray in winter, but I've been known to romanticize a thing or two in my mind.  We live in a little rural pocket outside of town, so my view is the mountains, trees and a run down barn. 



Winter Tree Line



Framing my view of Mt Jupiter are rolling hills covered in evergreen trees.  I simplified the trees into tall, skinny triangles and added a forest to the hill.  Each tree is swaying in the wind.  Here in the northwest, the trees near sea level aren't covered with snow, even after "winter storms" which usually end in very cold rain.  The sky is swirling with wind, even on the sunniest day.  I had to add the funky shell beads to the bottom -- they were just too much fun to pass by.  I then had to add the blue circles to the sky to balance them. 

I couldn't stop at just one quilt.  This was actually my first idea for the challenge. I followed the basic idea I had for another quilt, Joyful Bounty, and created a farm landscape.  I used circles to represent the crops and added that old barn.  Thinking about it now, I should also have added the broken down blue truck that hasn't moved since we've been here -- the color would have fit perfectly.  I added beads to the circles and finished the edge with seed beads.  The quilt doesn't quite have the joyful colors of summer I am used to working with.  Instead, it captures the slow growth of spring and the hope for eventual sunny days. 


Spring Thaw