"Solar Powered"

Is the name of the piece I gave you a glimpse of last night.  Many months ago, Irena Bhlum asked if I would be interested in doing a piece for her next book.  I happily agreed.  I am one of the least known contributors....and I'm in pretty spectacular company.  So you'll want to get the book when it becomes available in the spring to see what the really good people came up with!

"Solar Powered" is what I came up with.  I worked for several months  to come up with an idea and subsequently my sketches and finally the full size working drawing and pattern.  The next step was transferring the drawing to my prepared fabric.

I discussed with Irena her feelings about sharing the work in progress, and she was happy for me to do so.  As a result, you'll get to watch as this piece comes to life.  The rules were that it was to simulate piecing with Irena's "quilt first, then color techniques".  It could be a wholecloth or include appliqué....just no traditional piecing.   The color could be added by any medium you wanted...there were really no restrictions other than it must have the look of piecing through color application.

I decided mine was to be a wholecloth.  I am documenting the entire process and will be adding a section on my website to show my entire process step by step. I'll have still photos, as well as some video segments.  So look for it in the next few days.

And as a teaser for tonight, I'll leave you with a few more progress photos.

Here I am stitching the star points of the sun.  Two things; you'll notice that I am using colored threads to stitch these motifs on the white....the motifs will have color added later, the thread color adds depth.  And second, you'll see lots of thread tales...with this project I'm saving the thread burying until I finish the quilting.



Sun star points, rays and checkerboard ring around the sun



leaf vines, lizards, & diamond border



another view...



and another...



And in this photo you can really see how much loft there is.



When I go into detail on the website, I'll be specific about batting and threads used, as well as all the tools I used to draft the pattern and execute the stitching, so stay tuned.  There's lots more to come!