Phantom Tree

Phantom Tree is one of the quilts I started at my workshop with Quilting Adventures in Boerne last month. The background fabrics are batiks from my stash. The tree is hand dyed silk that I bought from Frieda Anderson.

I really had to think about how I wanted to quilt it and how I wanted to bring out the three. Really I didn't want to bring the tree out too much, I just wanted it to fall into the background and I didn't want the background to dominate the tree. I was searching for a harmony between the two. I love the contrast of colors of the background and the movement of the batiks, so I decided to use the movement of the colors to drive the quilting. I echo quilted the tree and used my Fabrico fabric pens to give texture to the tree and emphasis the turquoise color in the tree.

Now, I'm sure you are wondering why the quilt looks askew...I planned that. I didn't want it to be an even sided quilt. Since there are bolder limbs on one side of the quilt, that side is a bit larger than the other side. The right side is an inch larger than the left. Just had to do it!