Making fire – 2016.05.08

The working title of my latest Tree quilt is ‘Wildfire’.   I’ve made a lot of progress on it.  I decided I was happy with the fabrics I showed in my last post, so I started cutting the background fabrics into flame shapes where they overlapped.   Then I positioned the tree and some of the additional flame shapes to make sure all the colors worked together.  The only fabric I’m not sure about is the pinky-purple one just below the purple sky fabric.  I may decide to change that one.

My standard method for joining the fabrics would be to use fusible web.  Since most of these fabrics are batiks, and therefore not subject to fraying, I decided to just cut them into the flames shapes, then stitch the edges.  (At this point, I’ve layered the back and batting, and I’m stitching through all the layers.)   I just pinned the flame shapes in place – no fusing or glue.  I figured since I will be adding additional flames later, I could cover up any mistakes.  But actually, it worked pretty well – and saved a lot of time.  I used this neon variegated rayon thread to edge stitch the flames.

Now, I’m debating about that second from the top fabric.  In the first photo below, I have 3 possible fabrics, with the original pinky-purple one in the middle.  While I was looking through my stash to see if I had any other possible fabrics, I found the striped fabric.  The colors are good, and it would make the whole composition more abstract, but I don’t think it’s right.  At this point, I’m just dithering, so I’m going to stop now, and decide later which fabric to use.

Thanks for stopping by.  Today, I’m linking up with these blogs – click on the links below, where you’ll find many other creative and inspirational projects.