I have been madly working on my Rainforest quilt this week. The deadline is next Tuesday and I am at a Church Women’s Retreat on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. SO…..it is imperative that I get as much studio time as possible.
The plan for each of my days has been to work steadily on my accounting tasks until about 2 and then spend a few hours in the studio. This is actually working quite well as it is a great incentive for me to stay on task when at my desk.
When I last showed it here it was pinned onto the wall so now came the task of sticking everything to the backing fabric. I had planned to just use raw edge applique, but decided that the smaller pieces (stems, berries, etc) would be easier applied with a fusible backing. The other pieces were stuck on with a spray adhesive.
One note here, I wish that I had used fusible web on the entire piece!!! So many of the pieces have little bits sticking off and it has been a bit hard to get them all stuck down properly.
I carefully removed the piece from the wall and started sewing around each of the pieces to hold them onto the backing. It was an interesting process as I was worried that other bits would fall off so I tried to not move the fabric around very much. 
Since I was planning to add quite a bit of thread work, I decided to fuse a lightweight interfacing to the back to give it a bit more stability….
As always, the first stitches were the hardest, but I decided to start on the bamboo and was absolute thrilled with how it turned out….
As I worked, I kept trying to find the “perfect” thread color but finally decided to not try to match the thread to the fabric but just use whatever looked ok.
NOW for the “AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH”……
I had just finished embroidering the frog when I realized that I had caught the other side of the piece under the needle and had overstitched in the border….
After debating about taking out all of the stitching, I decided instead to cut the piece out of the border and simply move the quilt a bit more to the left. Fortunately I had added about 3 inches to each side of the piece so I had some room to do this…..
So, now my top looks like this……
But once it was squared up it looked better……
I had purchased a Wool batting to use on this piece, but since I was so tight on time, I decided to use my old fusible batting and be done with it.
The quilting is appearing to be a wonderful addition to the design…..
The plan for tomorrow is to finish up the quilting.
On Friday I will square it up (probably at the Fiber Frenzy meeting since there is a wonderful table where I can lay the entire piece out). Hopefully I can get the facing put on before leaving for the retreat.
Final steps can be done at the retreat….there is always time for a bit of hand stitching and maybe adding some beads…..