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.

Catching Up

I'm finally getting around to finishing up some quilts started over the summer.

This was started using a stencil and Walnut Ink, shown earlier in my blog. I added a curved frame, using reverse applique, and the border fabric was sun-printed using blades of grass and clover. Spelling out Basil and outlining blocks with beads added something extra.

This also was started using a stencil and Walnut Ink. I didn't like the effect it gave on the blue fabric, so decided to use the butterfly as an applique. The background is a hand-dye fabric where the dyes were swished around to mix with each other. This fabric was then reverse appliqued to yellow hand-dye fabric for the sun. The branch was fused and then appliqued.

Have more in the series that are a work in progress. Please come back to see them.

Painting Saturday

I mixed up some Seta Color paints Saturday to sun-print fabric. Last year I sun-printed some leaves on orange painted fabric but never used it. So now I mixed some orange, red-orange and red-violet and painted, then added some salt to give some texture. This will work well with last years fabric.


Next I used two blues, ultra-marine and cobalt. I painted it onto fabric and added salt.

Using moss green, blue-violet and purple, I streaked it on then added some leaves and sun-printed.

Another fabric I painted red and red-violet, put washers on the top and sun-printed.

Last I tried using a light green batik fabric, painted over with turquoise, laid down leaves and sun-printed.

I did the same thing with this piece but used a dark green paint.

I really like the look of the added salt. It gives a lot of texture to the fabric. The leaves that were sun-printed are just fun.

It was a productive day and a fun technique.