Here are the two tests I did of the tree trunk -- I liked the one on the right best - both for the perspective of the tree trunk and the thread I tried on it. My intention was to then machine embroider a tree trunk directly on the landscape background I created. But before I got around to doing that, I tried trimming away the muslin background of the tree trunk on the right to see if that would eliminate the puckering problems that I was having - it did and I liked the sort of frayed, fuzzy effect of the tiny muslin edges around the trunk and limbs so I decided to use it and just "sort of" machine applique it to my background - it doesn't have a satinstitch like a normal machine applique might use, I just sort of free-motion stitched the trunk to the background - since the piece won't be washed, I didn't worry too much about the fraying edges. I think the machine embroidery of the trunk is dense enough to hold it together for this purpose.
This is the landscape -- sort of a Ricky Tims Caveman technique -- I took a 2-day seminar from him in early December and tried to remember the technique he used for a landscape - without going back and viewing the video. I do plan to do another landscape with his technique during this journal year and will watch the video and look through my notebook from the seminar before attempting that one.
And the bare tree joins the landscape - just used a free motion stitch with the same thread I embroidered the tree trunk with to attach it to the background.
Machine quilted the background using several different threads for different areas of the background - so all that thread I bought at the beginning of this month did come in handy. Of course, I now probably have enough thread to do thousands of landscapes!
:-)

And this is what the journal page I attached to the back of the quilt looks like - the text is in my previous message about the reveal on Webshots. Just need to add the name of the piece to it - before I forget myself - since I didn't decide on that until last night as I was posting my picture and doing my blog entry. Sande gave me some info on fabric for inkjet printers from Dharma that she likes and I placed an order this morning - she says the fabric feels nice - and it's cheaper than the June Tailor stuff by far.