Fantasy Forest Part 1

During the summer I sun-printed a leaf forest using different hues of browns and brownish greens. Wasn't sure how I was going to use it at the time, but thought that it came out interesting.

Later in the fall, I sun-printed some 11" blocks with same or similar leaves but used bright hues of yellow/orange, yellow/green, red, green, red/violet, and purple.  Wasn't sure how I would use these either.

As I was reshuffling fabrics and cleaning my studio at the end of the year, I came across the sunprints and stuck them up on the design wall.  Ideas started jumping in my head, so needless to say the cleaning was forgotten.  I went through more of my stash and pulled out brown and green fabrics that would go with the background colors of my "forest".  To blend in the squares of sun prints I looked for a multicolored fabric. 

I added a small sashing around the "forest" with the multicolor, then started arranging the square sunprints around for borders.  The spaces in between them were filled with the brown and green batiks.  This left the corners open and a decision on how to work them.  I tried a simple square patch design with the batiks and multicolored fabric.  This looked good, and carried the colors around the border.

I started thinking about the quilting, but the center wasn't giving the feel of a forest.  So I traced the leaves and made stencils.  Using a black Shiva paintstick, I made shadow trees to give more depth.  After finishing this I stood back and could now see a forest.

Quilting decisions need to be made.  Come back for the results.