inspiration photographs and some of the fabrics I've chosen.

Most of the fabrics I use are batiks or hand dyes, because of the subtle colour variations which I can use to replicate the patterns of the rocks in the background and foreground.

starting to build up the designMolly watching the progress of the waterfall

Building up the background for the waterfall using a variety of different batik and hand dyed fabriccs.  For the area at the back of the waterfall I used a preprinted fabric and used fabric pens to emphasise the trunks and branches of the trees.

I’ve used invisible machine applique to construct this top, first making templates from freezer paper which I iron on to the right side of the fabric.  I clip the seams, brush the edges with liquid starch, then turn under the edges using the tip of an iron. It is time consuming but I prefer this method to ironing the freezer paper on the wrong side and glueing the edges because this way I don’t have freezer paper to remove after. I also prefer the look of turned under edges.

For the waterfall I used a batik fabric as the base, then added details using Shiva paintstiks and Angelina fibre. The rocks are all added individually and I have turned under the edges of each one. It’s a slow process but little by little I’m getting there.

adding the rocks to the foreground.

Little by little I am adding all the rocks, then the next step will be to add some foliage to the foreground and background.

I was going through my stash of browns and autumnal colours looking for fabric to complete another project when one of the batiks caught my eye and I thought it would be just right for my leaves. I just added a simple border as I felt the design didn’t need anything else.

The colours of the border fabric compliment the colours I have used in the leaves. I quilted in the background using a fine black 50wt cotton thread and because there is no quilting on the leaves they stand out well from the background. I used a thicker variegated cotton 40wt thread in the borders.

Detail of the leaf rubbing and quilted background

This time I wanted to try something a little bit different and just focus on a small detail of the leaves to create a more abstract design. It is an idea I’ve wanted to explore for a while and I was finally inspired by Katie Pasquini Masopust’s book: Design Explorations for the Creative Quilter where she devotes a chapter to exploring details of images.

I cropped the above image where two of the leaves overlap and create an interesting pattern.

I printed out the image and made an drawing on tranparency film which I thne scanned and imported into my Electric Quilt programme to create a pattern. Once the pattern was drawn out I went through my stash of greens  and chose over twenty different fabrics to recreate the shading in the leaf and add variety and interest. I printed out the pattern from EQ6 and traced one copy onto a satbilizer to use for the background and another copy onto freezer paper to use as a working pattern.

To make the design I cut out each section one by one from the freezer paper, applied it to the right side of my chosen fabric and then used starch and an iron to fold under the raw edge. Each piece is then applied to the background stabilizer and pinned, then I stitched each section in place using invisible thread and a reversed blind stitch.

The picture above shows the first sections stitched and further ones pinned in place and ready to stitch. I have used a mixture of batiks and tone on tone fabrics for greater variety and to add interest to the design.

This photo shows more leaf sections stitched in place. And finally the finished design.

I added a bright green narrow accent border and I outline quilted each individual section of leaf using rayon thread.

Recently I decided to make a wall hanging featuring just these palms. I drew out a pattern using EQ6 and to replicate the background and to give an impression of all the rich colours of the fallen leaves I chose to construct it from small 4 inch foundation pieced crazy blocks which I printed out from EQ6.

The illustration above shows the proposed quilt with the foundation pieced background and the applique motif on top. To construct the foundation pieced blocks I chose a wide variety of fabrics, mostly batiks in various hues and shades of brown, matching them to a photo I’d taken of fallen leaves.

 Once the background was pieced and all the blocks put together I appliqued the fan palms using satin stitch applique and rayon threads, I used a novelty yarn for the stems which I couched in place using invisible thread. I added dark brown borders and then quilted the whole wall hanging using a variegated polyester thread.

The picture above shows a close up detail of the foundation blocks, palm leaves, quilting and couched stems.

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.

my rain forest threads

Before starting with the coloured threads I outline quilted all the main features using an invisible thread, I then quilted in a trailing leaf pattern between the trees, using a darker coloured variegated cotton in the lower part of the design.

creepers and leaves

I’ve couched some yarn for the creeepers in the top part of the design and here you can see a detail of the quilting. Below you can see the completed design, I have allowed some of the leaves and foliage to spill over into the borders to break up the edges of the quilt. I finished the binding by hand stitching it on the back and then adding a hanging sleeve. Now I just have to find somewhere to hang it.

The finished wall hanging

Some detail shots:

foliage spilling into the border

Fan palms

I’ve been continuing to work on my rain forest art quilt design and it is slowly coming together. The difficulty is deciding how much extra detail to add, where to put it and when is enough.

In the photo above I’ve started adding some jungle floor foliage using raw edge applique, these fan palms are very common in the forest here.

fan palms and seedlings

fan palms spilling into the border.

These details are all attached using fusible web and I will secure them when it comes to the quilting stage. I plan to add a few more plants and some jungle creepers then I think I will be ready to put it all together and start the quilting.

Forest Path

The finished wall hanging.

Detail of the finished design

This design is now for sale in my Etsy shop: http://www.annemaundrelldesigns.Etsy.com

Since coming back from the Philippines, where we had an unusually dry December, we seem to have had nothing but rain here in Brunei. It rains a lot at night but there have been days too when it has been so dark we’ve had to have lights on in the house and the rain has come down in great torrents. The garden which normally drains quickly, being so close to the beach, has been flooded in places for the last few days, and two days ago I rescued a very nice frog which had got stranded in our patio. Later that day my husband found our kitten Millie about to play with something not so nice, a small scorpion had come in out of the rain. He caught it and put it over the fence into the jungle but I hope there aren’t any more around.

The scorpion

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.