white allamandas against an early morning sky

It was still a little overcast after a predawn shower and the flowers and plants were wet from the rain.

Heliconia flower

The garden isn’t looking at its best at the moment as I have been too busy quilting lately to devote as much time to it as I should. Everything grows so quickly in this climate and the garden can very quickly get out of hand. Perfect for small cats to play hide and seek in!

No one can see me here if I keep very still

The bougainvilleas also grow into huge shrubs here, and are in constant need of pruning.

Of course, Millie isn’t the least bit interested in gardening and thinks it is a complete waste of time as long as she has somewhere comfortable where she can lounge and keep an eye on things.

Millie looking contented with life

 Madagascar periwinkles grow almost like weeds and crop up all over the garden, but they are pretty and add a bright splash of colour wherever they turn up. I have used them for inspiration for both a cross stitch design and a small quilt, so maybe it is time for another one.

Madagascar Periwinkles

I have yet to make a quilt featuring a Bird’s Nest Fern, but we have a beautiful specimen in the garden, and the best thing now is that the spores have been carried on the wind and we have new ones cropping up all over  the place. I love the delicate curves of the new leaves as they unfurl.

Birds Nest Fern

My favourite colour is green and I love using it  in my quilts. I have a large selection of fabrics in every possible shade of green and I’m working on my thread collection so here is yet another possiblity for a new design.

A pretty pair of toads

These toads were taking an early morning bath, but nice as they are, I’m not planning to put these into a quilt, unless of course, someone specially requested it. Frogs are very popular, and I have sold a large number of my tree frog wall hangings but I don’t think toads have quite the same appeal.

Well, that’s all for now. I think I have given myself some new ideas to think about once I have done my final craft show tomorrow.

I imported the photo into EQ6 and then because of the complexity of the design I decided I would draw out the pattern in two parts, first concentrating on the hornbill and then creating another layout focusing on the background palm fronds. I did this and then once the background was drawn I copied and pasted the hornbill into the background.

To create the wall hanging I started off with some fabric that I had hand painted for the sky and invisible machine appliqué to construct the design. Normally I use freezer paper templates which I iron to the wrong side of the fabric and then remove after the construction is completed but for this design as there were so many small pieces I didn’t want to have to cut the back to remove the paper. I used a different method where I still use freezer paper templates but iron the paper to the front side of the fabric and then turn the edges under to wrong side using the tip of an iron and spray starch painted onto the seam allowance. The spray starch helps to hold the seam allowance in place.

I printed out the full size pattern from EQ6 and then traced the outlines onto a stabilizer which I pinned in place under my ’sky’ fabric. The fabric was light enough for me to be able to see the lines through so that I could place my pieces accurately.

I used a lot of fine pins to hold the appliqué pieces in place for stitching. I used invisible thread with a fine thread in the bobbin and a very fine needle (#60/8) and started stitching the pieces in place a few at a time as I built up the design on the background.

I had a lovely striped batik fabric which proved to be just perfect for creating the varied colouring of the palm fronds.

The fronds at the lower edge of the picture were so small and had such sharp points that I decided to fuse them in and use raw edge appliqué. To quilt I used invisible thread and outlined all the fronds and the bird, with stippling in the background areas and meander quilting with variegated cotton thread in the borders.

The finished design.

Before starting on the quilt we had another trip to the jungle and I took some more photos to inspire me and get me in the mood for another rain forest project.

I was slow to start this quilt but as soon as I started sorting all my fabrics out I started to feel inspired again. The quilt is of a waterfall set deep in the forest and is a design that I have made several times before but every time I make it, it turns out slightly different. My fabrics are always changing, I run out of old favourites and find new ones. I wanted to start fresh with this design so once I had assembled my fabrics and got my inspirational photos I didn’t look at any pictures of the previous quilts I’d made.

The quilt is constructed on a background of stabilizer on which I sketched the outline of the design and then the individual fabrics are added one by one. I use freezer paper templates and the edges are coated with liquid starch and then turned under so there are no raw edges in the construction process. Something funny happened when I first started. I grabbed a can of what I thought was spray starch and sprayed some in the lid and thought that it had perished from long storage as it came out as a sticky yellow mess. It was only when I stuck my finger in it that I realized that it was in fact spray glue and I had an awful job getting it off my fingers and paintbrush, but luckily I hadn’t applied any to the fabric.

These are the fabrics and photos assembled ready to start, and the design drawn out on tearaway stabilizer. I tend to use mostly batiks for these designs and I have some lovely striped batiks which I find particularly good for replicating the layers of rock.

In the photo above you can see where I have started layering the fabrics for the background, pinning them in place individually before stitching with invisible thread.

 I continued adding fabrics until the background was completed, then I started to add embellishments to create the foliage, waterfall and jungle creepers. I also added some machine trapunto to make the foreground rocks stand out. The whole design was outline quilted with invisible thread, then I used rayon threads to stipple in some of the background areas, finally finishing off with a variegated cotton thread in the borders.

Detail showing the foreground rocks made to stand out from the background a bit more by the use of machine trapunto, needlelace foliage and raw edge applique with decorative quilting for the water and sand.

The completed design, and it is particularly pleasant to look at the moment, with the image of the lush vegetation and the cool, flowing water because it is extremely hot this morning. There is an inland wind blowing, parching everything and bringing with it the smell of distant fires as the forest burns. This morning I woke with a headache and the smell of smoke throughout the house, I prefer rain any day.

Heliconia flower

Yesterday was national day here in Brunei, and to take advantage of the day off we got together with some friends to do a forest walk. The place we chose to go is about an hour and a half’s drive away from where we live and one of the few places left that still has primary rain forest. We set off early in the morning and it promised to be a fine day and as we drove up into the hills there was still heavy mist hanging over the tops of the trees.

 We were intending to walk to a place called Bukit Teraja, bukit being the local word for mountain, so the first part of the walk was very steep. The previous time we did this walk it was pouring with rain so it made a nice change to do it in dry conditions although because of the recent rain there were still plenty of leeches around. We were soon out of breath from the climb but the minute one stopped anywhere the leeches would home in, so it was best to keep moving.

After about twenty minutes of walking (or climbing) we emerged into a clear, exposed rocky area and this place is well known as an excellent place for spotting pitcher plants and we weren’t disappointed. It seems that there are a number of different varieties growing in this spot, some nestled in the undergrowth at ground level and others like creepers, climbing up through the branches of trees. Some were small and round like little pots, others long and thin.

It seemed the more we looked, the more we saw, they were just everywhere. After crossing this open space and ridding our boots and socks of leeches, we went back into the trees to continue our climb but we hadn’t got far before we found our way obstructed by a large fallen tree. Beyond the tree the path had been completely obliterated by a large landslide so this time there was no chance of getting to the top. We had a bite to eat and then went back down the path, the return journey being easier than the ascent, although by the time we got back to the cars my knees were feeling rather wobbly. The walk was very enjoyable even if we didn’t reach the top of the hill and more  photos for potential wall hangings.

In the photo you can see my pile of  fabric scraps and the photo taken on a recent jungle trip, which I used as my inspiration for the design. I never through any of my batik scraps away and keep them sorted by colour in clear plastic bags. I drew a basic outline of the forest path design on my backround fabric and then started applying the tiny snippets of fabric starting off with the lightest and most distant leaves.

Distant leaves and tree trunks, the design starting to take shape.

I used a pale grey fabric for teh background as I wanted some of it to show through as sky, but it meant that I had to cover the rest of the design very densely. I think next time I will use several fabrics for the background, roughly pieced so that I don’t have to cover it with so many pieces. I used tweezers to position some of the tiny pieces and when I was happy with the arrangement , fused them in place.

The finished design with borders added and a few leaves and plants spilling over the edge. The quilting will have to wait a while as we are away for most of December having a holiday in the Philippines, so I’ll be writing about that rather than my sewing for the next month.

Impressive buttress roots of a rain forest tree

We set off quite late,there was a queue at the border and it was almost midday by the time we set off and so we didn’t see much in the way of wildlife. We’ve had a lot of rain recently so the paths were quite wet underfoot and there were a lot of leeches, but we reached the waterfall which was our destination without mishap. After walking for an hour we were all hot and sweaty so it was refreshing to plunge into surprisingly cold water of the forest pool and cool down.

Forest Pool

The waterfall which has inspired the various waterfall quilts that I’ve made.

Lush forest vegetation

While I was taking photos of this bird we heard hornbills in the trees on the other side of the garden near the beach. Pied hornbills are quite plentiful here in Kuala Belait where we live, but we don’t get them very often in our garden so I was very happy to see this pair especially as I had my camera and zoom lens at the ready. The female stayed in amongst the trees so I wasn’t able to get any pictures but the male posed obligingly on an exposed branch.

I was inspired by the photos I took and for a while now I have been thinking about designing a new hornbill wall hanging so later I imported one of my photos into EQ6 and planned out a new design.

This is the new design for my hornbill wall hanging which I hope to start stitching in the next few days.