Chinese Lanterns

Chinese Lanterns

A few years ago I began working on a series of long and narrow quilts. The first was the Lamb Cottage quilt which I discussed in my last blog post. This one is based on a photograph of Chinese lanterns that my husband took. The applique is done, but I'm still working on the quilting. Notice I have the same foundation pieced border that I used in the Lamb Cottage quilt. When piecing the flowers themselves, I used different shades of orange hand-dyed fabric.
To construct the quilt, I pieced the entire background first so that there would be a base on which to applique. It's difficult to tell in the picture, but there are stepping stones in the background. It's a lot of work that isn't obvious, but I like the effect of the complex background with the bright leaves and flowers in front.
For the leaves, I used different batiks as they were and didn't have to do any coloring or painting. I washed paint on some of the fence fabric to make some pieces darker than others.