Fast Friday Quilt #2

What a happy surprise, after posting my first Fast Friday Quilt, a member of the Fast Friday Fiber Challenge group left some nice comments. I don't know how she found my blog -- I thought I was posting my quilts inconspicuously and relatively unseen. Just goes to show, you never know who might be dropping in...

Here is my Fast Friday Fabric Challenge Quilt -- Challenge #31
Color Concept: Highly saturated colors combined with muted colors (to create the illusion of luminosity)
Composition Concept: Use planes and masses (to create light and shadow)

My quilt concept: A saturated colored leaf falling down in front of a muted wall, casting a shadow on the wall. My thought process is good -- my execution leaves something to be desired. But again, the point of this is to practice and get better.

Still not happy with my art photography skills -- the color is not accurate. And yes, these really are two different photos. I like the background best in the photo above and the leaf best in the photo below.

Thought I'd try Colleen Wise's shadow technique from her book, Casting Shadows. To get an accurate leaf shadow, I hung a leaf template to a piece of paper, put directional light on the leaf, and traced the shadow. The leaf template flipped up causing an elongated shadow and I didn't recreate the flip in my fabric leaf, so the shadow looks a bit wonky and unnatural.

I like the way my wall turned out -- looks like a wall. I made lighter free motion lines in the upper left corner (source of light) and darker lines moving to the bottom right.

Tried a "pillowcase" style of binding/backing, with some success but not exactly straight.

Original leaf

Improved leaf (except the flash picture took away some of the dimension)
Made the veins more visible, changed the shape slightly, and added hand stitching (French knots and Bullion knots on stem). My free motion foot went bad, so I had to hand stitch (outline stitch) the leaf onto the quilt which took me forever.