When my wife died last year, poetry became my catharsis.  I wrote several poems.  So I decided to make a memory book and each poem would become a page.  I went  through several trial and errors sessions with paper, but nothing worked as well as fabric.  I learned a lot from this piece.  The burlap rectangle turned out to be way too light for the dark fabric background, so I sprayed it with walnut ink and let it dry.  I printed the poem on the inkjet printer on ecru cotton but there was now too much contrast with the burlap.  I placed a cotton rectangle with frayed edges to match the burlap but this created too much light area.  I chose brown tulle to cover the print and the light fabric and it created a nice midtone.  I had experimented with stamping on organza, so I used 3 rubber stamps of bare trees on 3 layers of organza of 3 colors.  I stacked them up, cut and sealed them at the same with a woodburning tool with a fine pointed tip.  It looked great!  I free-motioned stitched on the organza to show trunks and major branches then beaded with copper/gold/silver beads of mixed sizes for the woods floor.  The design was top heavy.  I tried adding a rubber stamped fern tip and a butterfly charm.  This helped but was not enough.  I cut a leaf shape out of antique gold organza with the woodburning tool and distressed the leaf surface with holes using the same tool.  I anchored it at the bottom left with free-motion stitching using a copper rayon thread.  Good texture but not enough visual weight.  I added some carnelian chip beads and they finished it off nicely.

Twilight falls upon the silent glade, staining mauve the Autumn woods.  Footsteps now silent lay upon  the leaf-strewn path, Memories of all who've gone before.

Once I passed this way with you, my love When Spring in green berobed the wood; But now brown and withered are the leaves, I 'll  pass this way no more.