Working with sheers

Time to start on my March journal quilt.  I have been very keen on the work of Paul Klee for as long as I can remember and have books, postcards etc. of his work.  He is one of the few artists whose work I have made a point of seeing in block-buster exhibitions down the years and it always amazes me how small much of it is.  He often used watercolour and/or pastel to do backgrounds of small squares in different colours so I thought I would pursue this idea.  I had also made a note of the work of Rosemary Claus-Gray which was featured in Quilting Arts some time ago.  http://www.rosemaryclaus-gray.com/index.htm  There is some very interesting work on her website although I am wondering if she has retired because it does not appear to have been updated for two years.
Rosemary uses scrim and cheesecloth and I had dyed this as well as linen in various shades of red and pink in my red dyeing day recently.

She mainly hand stitches her pieces and I fancy doing that although I realise that it will take some time and there are deadlines for journal quilts!  I may do the April quilt, for which I have some ideas, before I finish this one so I thought a 'work in progress' posting would be in order.

I have now layered all the fabrics.  The base is polyester organza, simply because I have almost run out of dyed silk organza.  I recognise that there will be some challenges, not just in the stitching (thickness of thread, keeping the piece reasonably stable etc.) but also in deciding on a suitable binding/finish.  Layering such sheer fabrics means that the overlays create a lovely array of colours.

I have had great trouble photographing this piece.  The apricots come out as orange and even tweaking the colour in Elements doesn't help that much so apologies.  Hopefully the final quilt will look better.  am using raw edge applique and this gives lovely effects with frayed fabric although fabric tears better than others.

The next step is to baste all the pieces together.  I am not sure exactly when I am going to do this, given that tomorrow is my husband's sixty-fifth birthday and he becomes a state pensioner!  We are going out to lunch with friends to celebrate so sewing time will probably be even more limited than usual.  And, in case you ask, I am a couple of years older than him so, as a woman in my age group, I have been a pensioner for some time.