Birch Tree Forest

A few years back I spied this quilted wall hanging on the Tallgrass Prairie Studio blog.  This was right around the time I started reading blogs, we moved into our new house and I finally had a dedicated sewing room.  We have cathedral ceilings in our master bedroom and those tall walls needed some decoration.  As soon as I saw Jacquie’s Night Forest quilt, I knew this was the perfect solution.  I emailed Jacquie and asked her permission to make my own version of her quilt and told her I would be sure to give her credit as the inspiration.  She graciously gave me permission.
 

So, with no pattern, just pictures of her finished quilt, I set out to make my version.  Jacquie’s Night Forest quilt is strip-pieced “birch tree” trunks on a black background.  I gathered some neutral fabrics, some black fabrics, a “birch bark” fabric and one blue-grey fabric and pieced strips, then cut the strips to 24” long and between 1 ½ and 3 inches wide.  I laid out the strips on my cutting table in more or less the same way as Jacquie’s design.

When it came time to piece the strips with the black background, I had some trouble because I was trying to piece them at angles to look like multi-trunk trees.  It took some trial and error, but eventually I was happy with the way it fit together. 

I quilted lines ½ inch apart only on the black background to make the trunks really stand out.  When it was all finished and bound, I added a label giving credit to Jacquie for the inspiration and noting that she gave me permission to duplicate her quilt, and then I sent her another email with some pictures of the finished product.

Jacquie's version finished at 19" X 41".  Mine finishes at 21" by 54". 

I was really late to the party when it comes to reading blogs but I’m so glad I finally did.  All that internet inspiration helped me to find exactly the right project for our bedroom wall.