I made this quilt shortly after I took a class with Phil Beaver. When I got home, I was eager to paint more fabric that could be used for appliqué. I dug out some Setacolor paints that I had left over from a class I took from Yvonne Porcella. I bought some stretcher bars and had a wonderful time painting the fabric.

Shortly afterward, I took a class with Laura Cater-Woods. I packed up my new handpainted fabric, some cool stripes, and some very special flowered fabric from the collection of a dear quilter friend and teacher who had recently passed away. Using a variation of a Broderie-Perse technique I had used before, I created these flowers. Before, I had always used invisible thread to sew down my pieces; but here, I chose thread with color as a design element.

I offer workshops for each of these techniques: handpainting the background fabric and raw-edge Broderie-Perse.