Winter to Spring

Winter to Spring

58"x 40"

2009

Some people like winter, I am not one of them. It's not just about being cold, it's about the light. There is less of it, and it looks different in winter. But spring! Now, that's my season, the light looks fresh and new and young. It makes all the flowers look bright and cheerful and fresh. This abstract piece is about the light in spring and the feeling I get from it.

How I made it:

I draw a small line sketch on a piece of paper that was roughly the same scale as I wanted my final piece. Then I taped some large pieces of paper together to make a full scale template. I tried to capture the feeling of the smaller sketch and just let the lines flow on the paper (not too hard, I only had to draw three of them!). Then I pieced the 5" square blocks together in a grid. One whole section for each color. I placed the paper template on top (previously cut to shape), and cut the fabric along the line. I approximated where the edge would be so that I could have fusible ironed to the back already. Then the piece was ready to fuse on top of the next piece (which I cut slightly larger than it's template so that it could have the other sections fused on top of it along the edges). Normally I would have satin stitched the edges next, but I saved that for last. I sandwiched and machine quilted along all the stripes and then satin stitched the raw edges.

The fabrics: most are commercial cottons, a few are my own batik designs. There are perhaps 80+ different fabrics used. Each one was batiked in thin 1/4" stripes, bleach discharged and overdyed.