Coming Up for Air

Coming Up for Air
13.5" x 19"

This quilt was inspired by hurricane Katrina. The image of all the people being rescued by helicopter and then dropped off at bridges without shelter or supplies still haunts me. In this quilt, the fish are coming up for air, their town submerged with polluted waters, and yet fish can't breathe air. Another version of "out of the fire and into the frying pan". The dots on the binding are hundreds of beads, people watching and unable to help.
The fish are strip pieced, 3-D fishies hand appliqued. I like to call them quilt pillows.

all the fishies

all the fishies - 2004
51" x 51"

This quilt was made to honor diversity and to appreciate the differences in all people.
I had envisioned this image as the back for a king sized quilt I am making. Then I heard about the Husqvarna-Viking Competition and decided it would be perfect! My dad sent me some money for my birthday and I immediately went to the quilt store for fabric. This is the fastest quilt I had ever made. It took 2 months from start to finish, just in time for the deadline! There are over 500 fish individually appliqued (with fusible webbing). The background is strip pieced. When I thought I was finished with this one, I asked my son if he thought the fish needed eyes or not. He said yes, so I proceeded to paint the eyes on. I was so nervous about dropping big globs of paint on my beautiful quilt, but somehow I didn't. I really toyed with the idea of gluing on googly eyes for the fish, but went with fabric paint in the end. The story now goes that the fish needed eyes so that they could see where they were going. I was so happy that my quilt got into Husqvarna-Viking, but it will be gone until 2006 and I miss it!

Here is the poem I wrote for the fish:

all the fishies in the sea
live on one planet as do we.
and like all the fishies in the ocean
swimming like poetry in motion,
with open eyes we can see
the beauty in variety.