Appliqué Landscape

Another appliqué experiment - this time inspired by pottery.

I made up the process as I went along, and began with a quick freehand drawing using smooth, simple shapes. I numbered and labeled each piece before cutting the paper along the draw lines.

I used each paper piece as a template, cutting the fabric about 1/8" larger on all sides. I did this because I wanted about an 1/8" of foundation fabric to show between my appliqué shapes, reminiscent of the dark ceramic base of my inspiration. I experimented a bit with different colors in the landscape, ultimately keeping the hills a single green and swapping the lightest coral for one closer to the darker coral.

After pinning in place, making sure each piece overlapped evenly with its neighbors, I basted all the pieces down.

I used needle-turn appliqué and 50 or 80 weight, whichever I had on hand, of Aurifil thread to stitch the pieces down. This was a bit fiddly because of the overlapping pieces. Here it is about half finished.

After appliquéing, I removed the basting stitches. I like how the landscape looks, simply framed, but now I wonder if it would be improved with quilting. There is a slight wave to the fabrics that is bugging me a little bit, even with a few layers of batting added behind it. If I quilted it, I could mount it on top of the mat, rather than behind it. What do you think?