Randam I began this quilt in a workshop with Jane Sassaman, "Abstracting from Nature" at Art Quilt Tahoe 2014. Would you believe that the orchid that I started with as a model was a sedate white and purple number? When I found the orange and purple print fabric that became the petals on the blossoms, I knew that I had to use that and throw out the "natural" color scheme and get bold! The new colors left Jane speechless whenever she came to my table. This was also the first piece that I free-motion quilted using my new Sweet Sixteen machine--making all the tropical "ferns" on the beautiful hand-dyed background fabric was a lot of fun.