Tomorrow is Sept. 11. I was thinking about the event more than usual this year. No sure why. One thing that came to mind after Sept. 11, 2001 was the phrase “what if?” As a result, the desire developed to write about the quilts I made after that notorious day. I thought I would give you a mini tour of two of my older quilts.
What Comes Next is the quilt I really wanted to make for the America From the Heart quilt project, which was put together by Karey Bresenhan for the 2001 International Quilt Festival exhibition. I couldn’t process my thoughts and feelings fast enough, much less construct this quilt, to make the deadline. Once I sent off Fireball I could relax a bit. Not having the pressure of a deadline helped me come up with the design for What Comes Next. I can definitely finish a quilt under pressure, but not design a quilt.
The message I wanted to communicate with the quilt is that people are people and I would like them to treat each other better. I stamped words like consideration, kindness, caring, etc on the quilt. Pretty obvious method rather than being oblique, but I didn’t want there to be any ambiguity with what I wanted to say.
Fireball the quilt that went to Houston and is in the book, is part of a series of woven quilts that I have been making on and off over the years. It was fast to make on short deadline. I chose the colors – they were a fat quarter pack – because they looked like fire, smoked and charred wood. This was one of the first times I used dotted fabrics.
