Shimmery Tunnel of Memories

Shimmery Tunnel of Memories, Quilt #177

Four-in-Art, Series Four: Light

10 1/2″ wide 16″ high

I had fun trying to recreate a rainbow-hued interpretation of Multiverse, a work of art in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC.  Please visit my blog at Occasionalpiece-Quilt (opquilt.com) to see more of the story.

This is the first quilt in our fourth year of making quilts together. Our little group is so talented at interpreting all aspects of our changing yearly themes, with four quarterly challenges.  

I also have a deconstruction post coming up on my blog where I talk about how this is the completely wrong title, but it will have to stay because I'm not making a different label.  It will post later this week with the intended title.

Shimmering Ponds

My reveal of Shimmering Ponds was paper pieced using batiks and shiny silver lame. 

I pieced the fabrics in different ways to show that the ripples of water can move in different ways depending upon conditions. The lame shows the shimmering and glimmering of the movement.

I was pleased that the sun was brightly shining on the snow today so my photo enhanced the silver lame in the paper piecing. 

I will have my blog post up (a day late) on February 2, 2017

at www.patchworkbreeze.blogspot.com

Shimmer

Here is my Shimmer reveal for February. More about the making of this quilt can be found at Rainbow Hare, Janine :)

Light: Shimmer: Lips!

This 12"x12" quilt is my Art Quilt for Quarter One.
For more details you can visit my personal blog: The Life of Riley

Light: Shimmer

For this theme I took inspiration from way the light bounced around in the facets of my cut glass doorknob and cut into blocks and used gold fabrics to reflect the patterns I saw there.  You can read more on my blog

Light Shimmer

This theme inspired me to notice again the patterns that light makes on calm water; which I'm fortunate to have had the opportunity to observe from my kayak, whether on the sea, lakes or river.

Here is what I came up with and if you'd like to read more you can do that here on my blog.

Sun Shimmer, Filtered

Light:  Shimmer:  Sun Shimmer- filtered


When our theme for this year, Light/Illumination, was announced, it scared me a bit.  My fear was not what subject matter to choose, rather that there were so many possibilities and how to pare down the choices into something I could translate with fabric (always a challenge).  And while sunlight in the tree tops surrounding our "house in the woods" was my first choice, that idea fell by the way when I realized it could easily end up being more a study in shadows.

I then turned to my favorite place for shimmer:  sunlight on water (specifically my beach, Emerald Isle, NC).  In all its sweetness, I give you the sun AND

 Sun Shimmer - filtered.


My large selection of yellows gave me plenty of choices for sun colors.  The water interpretation proved more difficult until I remembered some wonderful hand-dyed pieces in my stash from http://www.colorwaysbyvicki.com/ (she presented at our guild and I've used her pieces in many things).  I wanted something which appeared more reflective than just water.

The next challenge was identifying the actual sun with some "shimmer".  This became trial and error:  an overlay proved unsuccessful and the glitter cooperated only slightly better.  In the end I left the "cooperative glitter" and added beading.

What I enjoyed most about making this piece was the chance to work with random curves.  Like many quilters, curves unnerve me, but these were gentle and they cooperated and it was just fun!

I quilted this piece in silver metallic thread and used the same thread for a raw-edge binding.  Traditional binding would have drawn the eye to the outer edges and taken away from my desired view.

Folks often chide me for the size of my stash, but when I don't have to leave home to shop for the perfect fabric - like this backing - I'm happy!  In this piece I see fractured light.    And clearly Mr. Sun approves.

Each time I affix the label to my piece, I marvel at the number we have done.  AND I wonder if, some day down the road, I may want to make one large quilt out of them.  But for now I simply enjoy placing them around the house and rotating them from time to time.

Another Four-in-Art in the books!  And now I'll look forward to our May 1, 2017 reveal.