Starting a new quilt

A sneak peek from the quilt I’ve just finished. I love making the appliqué style quilts, you can almost paint with your fabrics. It’s also a perfect way to use up those little offcuts. 

I’m still stopping and going with my crazy quilt (link), it’s nice therapeutic work, simple enough to let your thoughts run. But for a creative outlet I need something else.
I came across an “Enchanted Forrest Quilt” with pockets for puppets and lots of different textures overlapping, very 3-dimensional.
It would make a great wall hanging for the kids play area as well as a nice creative challenge.
So how do I start a quilt?

Mostly starting with a very rough sketch, dimensions and penning down ideas. Writing down elements I would like to include, colours and a theme. For this one the theme is going to be: Magical Forest. I’m thinking I might include some small led-lights since it’s going to be on the wall.

Next step is getting the colours and fabrics together. I can see a waterfall (hiding a unicorn), a frog pond, trees with hollows, toadstools, animals and bushes forming. This is just from the stash of leftovers, I’ll gradually add some things to it as I find them.

I would love to work in the Rien Poortvliet (link) style, including the gnomes:

If you ever happen to see gnome fabric being sold anywhere, please let me know!