King of the Road

I am a member of SAQA-Studio Art Quilters Association. Recently they asked their Texas members to contribute to a traveling trunk show by creating 12"x12" small quilts depicting various impressions of life in Texas. Since I'm not one for sentimentality or cliche (no cowboys or oil derricks) or overly cluttered scenes I came up with a fairly simple image based on my recent observations of Grackles at our pond, combined with living on the Plains, and especially in a time of drought. Here is my step by step process of "King of the Road". I'm not sure if it is done. It may need a few more bits of embroidered dust. Is that a Haboob in the distance?

I had to snip his tail off bcause the artwork can't project beyond the border.....:-(
Then I added both machine and hand stitching.

Some close-ups.

A veil of black net, like the shadow from a cloud. I wanted to break up the space a bit into more shapes.

Time to square off the edges and add a border.

                            Some beads to represent dust and sand. Texture is always a good thing.

And....is it done? I don't know. I need to to snip away the stray threads and mull on it for a day or two.