Orchid #1, continued

I made a lot of progress today on my first orchid piece for the Fiber Art Options’ project we are hoping to turn into a traveling exhibition. After heat setting the paint with an iron, I trimmed out the painted orchid and hand appliqued it to a black background. I then layered it with batting (wool/poly) and an upholstery-weight backing, and pin basted it. You can see all the layers here:


Then I started machine quilting it, using 50 weight Aurifil Cotton Mako thread, which I love for this kind of work.

I added a slight suggestion of leaves in the background, but left it pretty much alone. I’m trying to decide if this is enough detail in the background. If I get up tomorrow morning and it still looks okay to me, I’ll finish it up and face it.

Here’s how it looks now:


This last photo was taken outside, so the colors are pretty true.