Palm trees on the island

While pondering the next steps on Scott's king-size Hawaiian quilt, I decided the nearest island needed some trees at the base of it. I found some fabric in my stash and used the back for the farthest row and the front for the nearest. They look like the trees on some of the actual islands (better than this photo), but most of them have at least a few palm trees. I do not have an embroidery machine, however my Bernina 1630 has a few simple motifs and it suddenly came to mind that one of them is a palm tree! 

I did a practice run, finally remembering to put on the correct foot (#40). Otherwise the tree was lop-sided. This sample is a close close-up as the tree is less than 2" high. I'm using Invisafil so the stitches almost disappear rather than showing up as they do in this picture. I also fiddled around until finding a nice zig-zag that looks better than this photo.

Then I used a permanent marker to fill in the leaves. I'm not sure about thread painting or more painting, but right now, it looks just fine from a few feet back. Here's hoping I don't fall off this learning curve (or ruin the quilt)!