I’ve always loved silver birch trees, and they make a great subject, as the many artworks on social media show.
For the November 2025 Kapiti Coast Art Trail, I stitched several new fibre artworks including “Silver Birch with Vivid Sunset” which sold on the first day of the art trail. “Silver Birch with Turquoise Lake” and “Autumn Sunset with Birch Trees” are waiting for new homes.
In October 2024, I completed my 32nd Silver Birch Forest themed fibre artwork. This one’s more abstract than some – a crossover with my new Vivid Forest series. In July and August, I completed the imaginatively named Silver Birch with purple landscape and Silver Birch with apricot landscape (sold).
As at mid-2023, I’d stitched 15 silver birch themed fibre artworks and, pleased with their success, I’ve planted silver birch trees in my home garden, and you can see their latest growth below.
In January 2024, I completed my 26th work in the series: “Three Silver Birch Trees”.
Scroll down the page for my updates from early work with a birch tree to later forest stitching.
Completed mid to late 2023
In looking for inspiration and enjoying other artists’ work, an image of silver beeches on Pinterest intrigued me, so much that I saved it to several boards. It turns out to be a mosaic, but it sparked the idea of an autumnal forest scene, to enter into the “Warmth” themed exhibition in from out of the blue gallery. So began my forest stitching, and what fun I’m having!
The image that first intrigued me is Michael Sweere’s mosaic, “Birches and Lupines”. You can see it, and my Silver Birch Trees board on Pinterest.
(May 2023) Happily, “Enchanted Forest” sold via Pataka. Meantime, two of several smaller, postcard sized works have sold via Kapiti Gallery where they’re in the “Twists and Structures” exhibition.
L-R: Lavender, Pines and Birch forest (small), Forest Hill (sold) and Pastel Forest with grass (sold)
(February 2023) A couple of years since my last update! In the meantime I created another work, “Enchanted Forest” below, in similar colours to “Silver Birch with Lavender” which was sold in 2021; it’s currently (April 2023) in the Creative Fibre exhibition at Pataka Art+Gallery.
In February I began stitching two new works, to enter into Creative Fibre’s “Festival of Fibres” challenge. This year the theme is “Squares, squares, squares” so I was careful to stitch in square blocks of colour. My 3rd entry will be a lined tote bag, “City Squares” in vibrant colours.
(March 2021) I’m currently working on the eighth fibre artwork in this series.
(September 2021) Update: #9 is finished, and #10 is on the way…
My first stitching works featuring silver birch trees preceded this series by a couple of years: works created for gallery exhibitions. “Winter Wonderland” cushion (2016) and “Summer Stream (Four Seasons, 2019)” were displayed in Kapiti Gallery, and “Seasons in a Forest” (Creative Fibre Wellington Area’s 2019 exhibition) in Pataka Gallery respectively.
“Summer into Autumn” (i) and (ii) were soon followed by “Young birch forest” (i) and (ii).
Next came smaller works, “Vivid Forest” (i) and (ii), and the much larger “Leafy Forest” (not framed yet).
After working my own designs but using traditional cross-stitch and tent stitch, I’ve started experimenting with long stitch as well as couching and other techniques. I’m so thrilled with the results, I’ll show you some close-ups of the stitching, as well as other examples of my recent long-stitched work.
Follow Eclectic Yarn, my new fibre crafting presence on Pinterest, and have a look at my general boards, too.
Eclectic Yarn fibre artwork 