Escape challenge quilt

The ESCAPE theme for a challenge.  And right after I had faced my own challenge being alone, snowed in without electricity and no possibility for escape for several days.  

My list of materials to use for this piece started with a stencil of tree branches that I really wanted to use.  How could I fit that into an image of escape? I toyed with painting several colored leaves on the branches with one slowly falling to the ground.  That could symbolize changing seasons and the coming winter.  But the stencil was a negative shape of the tree with the color to be applied on the outside of the shape rather than a stencil of the tree branches.  Harder to deal with but I really wanted to use that stencil.  And I did--with acrylic paint over a fabric that was perfect for portraying tree bark. I then had a great stencil on a very stiff piece of fabric (from the acrylic paint) that would need to be quilted someway.  With acrylic painting on fabric every needle punch leaves a hole and if something had to be taken out there might be a lot of holes.  I left that problem for later and found a good image of geese flying south in their V-formation and stenciled that on with markers.  Stencilled the letters for escape with a marker and all was solved except the quilting method.

Snowflakes would be good--French knots or beading.  I settled on some clear crystal beads.  I was aiming for a random sprinkling of beads to tack the layers together and to appear as light snow.  

There was more thinking time about how to create the small quilt and reacting to each step than time spent stenciling and beading which isn't the way I usually  proceed but it worked.

Materials:  cotton fabric, stencils, acrylic paint, markers and glass beads.