Working on My Flame Vine Quilt

The quilt I’ve been working on is inspired by a friend’s flame vine, which cascades down her back porch.  In the strong Florida sun, it’s especially striking when seen against the dark porch screening.

After finishing the orange flowers, I went on to the leaves.

Next, I tackled the long skinny pieces.  I’m not sure what they are, but they’re some part of the plant. Let’s call them twigs.   At any rate, they were in the original photo and I liked the graphic quality they added to the abstraction.  To audition sizes I started tearing fabrics and I liked the fuzzy quality I got with some of them.  So, I just left them that way.

Finally, it was time to glue everything to the muslin and start stitching.  I added black zigzag around each block unit.

For the petals and leaves I chose an organic quilting pattern that, in part, followed the shape of the piece.  For the background, I selected parallel lines.  In each case, they follow the angle of one of the twigs.  I really like the effect.

After all of this, I thought some of the petals merged a little bit too much.  To add definition, I drew around the edges with a Sharpie.  That helped, but it was partially covered by fuzzy threads, so I looked for something more significant.  I found it with a thin black cord which I hand couched on.  It gave the perfect outline.

On to finishing!  I faced the quilt and sprayed marked areas with water, to remove the chalk marks.
But, oops, one area bled.

I decided to hide it by adding more of the same.  Like this:

I used water soluble wax pastels, adding a little yellow and orange.  Plus, I think the extra water added faded the original spot.  Voila!  On to photo taking.

Ellen Lindner