When I chose the theme "Leaves", I had an interior motive -- to corner myself into actually carrying through on a project I had considered for some time.  In my back garden is a weeping birch tree.  It is a pleasure at all times of the year, but is especially beautiful in early fall, when strands of golden leaves appear amidst the green.

To make the leaves, I coloured Tyvek paper with alcohol inks.  Then each leaf was cut out.  To make the leaf stems, I positioned a small strip of water soluble stabilizer at the top of each leaf, and sewed 4 lines of straight stitching, then "bound" the lines together with a narrow zigzag before sewing the veins on the leaf.  The leaves then had to be soaked to remove most of the stabilizer.

The leaves were stitched by hand onto fine cords to create the strands of leaves.

The background is a blue/white batik, fused to a thin batting, then overlaid with sparkling white net and then turquoise net.  I stitched lines across it, then slashed the turquoise net and folded it back or removed it, added more white net and sewed it down to create the cloud-streaked sky.

Finally the strands of leaves were attached at the top of the hanging.  I tacked them down in places, but basically they hang free and can move just like the real leaves.

I was very happy working on this.  Obviously my well of patience runs deep with this sort of detail, even if it may be somewhat less in evidence at other times!