Rug Hooking Diary...Wonderland is Close!

I just returned from the Wine Country Rug Hooker’s annual retreat at Irish Beach….what fun we had. I wish you all could have been there. We took walks to the beach, did a lot of hooking, ate too much good food, laughed a bunch and had some tasty Margaritas!
I managed to get quite a bit of work done on Wonderland and it feels like it's getting close to completion.
I've decided to make one small change to the pattern as drawn. It has little crosses drawn in for the stars and, after hooking a couple of them, it's just not working for me. They look wonderful in Martina's original piece but I've pulled them out and plan to hook in a few stars at the end.

The biggest challenge, so far, has been bringing the trees into the foreground. A little story about this..... I meet once a month with a group of textile friends at a little tea shop on the island of Alameda; we sit outside in the patio/garden and hook, knit, embroider, and have good talks. At the end of one of our recent meetings, I held this piece up and mentioned that I was finding the trees to be a challenge. My lovely friend, Andrine, spoke up and said, "What trees? I didn't realize there were any trees!" Humbled, I went back to the studio & spent two hours tweaking the trees and roof lines.....a little strip here and a little strip there.
It's good to have friends who are honest with you and let you know when you can't see the forest for the snow!