Project Quilting 8:3 Tune in to Texture

This challenge was really difficult for me for some reason!  I really struggled to come up with an idea for my quilt.  I loved the idea, just trying to find an inspiration was extremely difficult for me because my week was so crazy!  I spent some time looking out my back window into the rain yesterday, then when I looked down I saw how neat my back porch steps looked.  They are aged concrete and the wet weather has caused the moss to grow on them.  So you see these wonderful stones with moss in between and it clicked in my mind to do something with this idea.

I found a nice piece of mossy green fabric for the background, then started cutting out stones from different some gray and tan fabrics.  At first I thought to hand applique, then realized I would never finish in time.  So after turning the edges under I attempted to free-motion stitch them down through my quilt sandwich.  I figured that would help with making the rocks stand out from the background.  It really wasn't that bad to do!

You can see how it looks to start out.  I kept adding more rocks until I had my center filled out as far as I wanted it.  I then trimmed it to about 8 x 6 inches and bound it.  After looking at it for a bit I realized that I really needed to quilt the moss down to make the rocks stand out more, so loaded some green thread in my machine and stitched little circles all over the moss.  If I had some fuzzy yarn or thread that would have been perfect, but had to make do with what I had on hand!

Here is my finished piece:

And to give a little perspective as to size:

When the weather improves I'll have to go do some texture hunting around my neighborhood!  I'd love to work on this idea more - rain and wind aren't very helpful with finding inspiration - but that's where I live this time of year and we deal with it!  Coos Bay, OR is my home :)

Linking up with Kim for Project Quilting!