Working on the clouds

Today I'm creating the clouds for my landscape, "Bearing the Fruit of Justice and Peace" for the United Methodist Church of Hartford.

This is how the clouds appear in my full-size pattern.  That's the Hartford skyline there.

 

 

I found a piece of flannel that had once been used as an angel costume for Julia when she was 3.  I used a scrap of that flannel and traced the outline of the clouds on it, right from the pattern

Then I added two layers of a moire-patterned synthetic sheer from my stash 

Once I had the flannel layered with the sheers, I could use machine satin stitching to outline the clouds

Now the clouds are pinned in place on the landscape.  Next:  adding a few buildings to show the Hartford skyline.

 

Bearing the Fruit of Justice and Peace: Creating fields full of crops

Today I'm taking yarn and using a technique called couching to sew it down to the pieces of this banner that represent the fruitful fields. 

Banner # 3: Bearing the Fruit of Justice and Peace

Today I'm working on the third of three banners commissioned by the United Methodist Church of Hartford.  This one illustrates the phrase, Bearing the Fruit of Justice and Peace.  So what kind of entity bears fruit?  A tree, among others.  The visual inspiration for this third banner is a tree.

This is the visual image I'm using:  a small banner which I made a few years ago, based on an illustration by an American artist of the craftsman era, Dard Hunter, for an edition of Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle.  Maybe this is supposed to be the place where Rip fell asleep.  This banner will hang along the balcony in the rear of the church, which is why it will have such a long horizontal shape:  7 feet by 22 inches.

Using that image, I had a pattern made at Kinko, and right now, I'm in the process of constructing the canopy on the tree. 

 I broke the pattern for the canopy down into four smaller components and traced it onto muslin.  Then I cut smaller pieces of leafy fabric and sewed them to the muslin backing.  Then I cut the backing and the leafy fabrics, now sewn together, along my pattern lines.

So, this is the image of the tree as it now exists:

Will I completed it by the April 10 deadline?  Why did the church change the deadline from Easter, or Memorial Day, for that matter, to April 10?  More to the point, what am I going to use for the fruit of justice and peace?