Embroidered Collage

I've been wanting to use a specific group of materials for a while.  One is a crazy quilt fabric packet, another is a hand-made paper collection, and the third is a couple yards of a really neat tree/forest fabric that I purchased a while back.  I sat on the sofa with these in my lap, thinking about thirds, with a 12"x12" canvas in front of me and just played, manipulating and fondling the materials until I came up with a few ideas.  Then I sketched them up with notes, so I wouldn't forget.

I thought of the middle one first - since it used the most obvious materials, but then I kept going.  I envisioned a very close up tree taking up part of my field of view for the top sketch.  The bottom idea grew out of some very interesting materials remaining.  I often gravitate to squares and rectangles. 

Sketching the ideas onto the page helped me to evaluate their worth.  I knew the geometric piece could use more work and I wasn't happy with my ideas on how to build up the texture for the the close-up tree, so I returned to my first idea.  I know that this is less sophisticated but I LIKE it.  We'll see if I actually end up using the commercial collage images or not though.