I created this quilt, Fantasy Flowers, in response to a wonderful piece of batik fabric I found. When I first saw the fabric, I thought, "What great building blocks that will make!" In fact, every flower and leaf in this quilt comes from the same piece of batik fabric. I cut out interesting shapes, using the batik print to guide my cutting lines. The black outline is part of the design of the fabric. The stems were cut from other fabrics.

After I cut out different shapes, I laid them out and glued them down lightly with Roxanne's Glue Baste It. I'm now experimenting with Appliglue with really good results. The gluing technique is similar to the one that Susan Carlson teaches.

I used black thread to stitch around the flower and leaf pieces, since it blended in so nicely with the black of the fabric. For the background, I used a piece of fabric that I handpainted on fabric stretchers using Setacolor. If you look closely, you can see where I put down salt on the color for added movement. If you'd prefer, you could easily use this technique on your favorite solid or other fabric.

I offer workshops for each of these techniques: handpainting the background fabric and Broderie Perse using this batik or other fabrics.