Working With Warmth

"The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time." Abraham Lincoln

For the Artists in Blogland Fall Fearless and Fly Challenge participants were encouraged to work with warm colours, to envision our dream for the future, and to ponder these words of Abe Lincoln.

A gorgeous pink silk swatch from a designer friend sandwiched over one of my torn pieces of sheet and a scrap of batting formed the basis for this little quilt. I reached into my grab bag of tiny strips - the ones you get when you cut fat quarters or square up edges and pulled out pinks reds and oranges at random and started to play with colour and texture. As each strip of fabric was laid on the little quilt I started following the twisting and turning line it made with a zigzag quilting stitch. Suddenly aqua asked to be added to the mix and I added a few aqua strips.

Turning the quilt over I traced around the bottom of my water glass, adding some random circles to cut out and darn back into the quilt. I added radiating points around one of the circles with variegated thread, spirals running in and out of some of the circles, a stitched frame and the piece was ready to trim and photograph.






I love the back of this quilt. The texture of the different types of quilt stitch and the lines where I drew and cut the circles have their own sort of beauty.


My dream for my future includes a body of work that I have created and that I can look back on with pride. It will not magically appear. It needs to be worked on day after day. One stitch at a time. One idea at a time.

There will be missteps and days that I may not have anything to show for my efforts. There will be days when I stare at the wall, play on the computer or walk the dog instead of getting anything done.

There will be days when I walk into a room and see something that I have made myself, with my own two hands and my imagination, and I will smile.