Warm Heart Trapped by Icy Blue

Warm Heart Trapped by Icy Blue
70.5" x 86.5"
(back side of Flow)

This quilt is the reverse side of Flow. It started out as square sections of red that I built up with strips of blue in a log cabin style.

It is an easy and fun way to build a quilt top to use up scraps. Then as I was working on it, the center red reminded me of my heart.  The blue strips were experiences through time.  As time passes, I have more experiences and more pain and build bigger walls around my heart.  It's all about protection and fear.  What does it take to get back to the center?  I am suspecting that the answer is love.  Because as these "wall" are built from emotional pain, they will be pulled down from an emotion just as strong as any other, Love.  If you have ever fallen in love, you know what I mean.  The love just bypasses any thoughts and gets right to the heart of things. 

Here is the completed top, before the quilting.  This is the trapped side.  It is all about being stuck behind the walls.  The other side, Flow, is about movement and flow and getting the heart pumping again, breaking free of constraints, sometimes self imposed constraints.  This is one of the many reasons why I love this quilt so much, because it truly integrates both sides of the quilt.

I am not sure if you have noticed how distorted the full view of the completed quilt is at the top? This is because of the dense machine quilting on the front in long diagonal zig zag lines.  I was really surprised when I looked at the back and noticed just how distorted the quilting made my beautiful and perfectly square shapes.  Maybe a metaphor for memory, or cognitive distortions? I am not sure but I really find it even more beautiful now.

To get this quilt to lie flat, I tried blocking it.  First I soaked it in a bathtub full of water.  It looks really interesting suspended in folds in the water. 

I flattened it out while it was wet, and pinned down all the edges and then set some fans up to blow it dry.  That worked to flatten it, and then I trimmed it and put the binding on.  All set!  Here are a few details of the back that show the quilting from the front side.  I love how it adds interest and texture to the big red blocks.

This completes the last of the new quilts, and hopefully I will be updating soon with another installation of the Plenty to Go Around quilt.  Cheers!