So, last week, I was a little bored with what I was working on; and I pulled out this lovely piece of dupioni silk in this pale shade of Tiffany blue.

I'm not really a literal kind of quilter, but if I were - I would love to turn this photo into a quilt... the colours, the subject who uses his body as a piece of living art; the juxtaposition of colours and textures...  *le happy sigh*

(Monday post on Tuesday because I was away...)
This was the last of my "journeyman" quilts: the quilts I made when I first started quilting and was trying everything and anything - whatever I thought was pretty, or fun.   It was a good experience.  Not only did I learn a lot in terms of sewing; but I also learned what my style was, what worked for me, and what I wanted to know more about.

I made a baby set (!) which is called "Daisies Sing the Blues".

The baby quilt is, well, baby-quilt sized *w*; done in white cotton and scraps of the blue-on-white daisies fabric that you see here.

This is my most recent piece that I call “Once, I Was a Child.”



When we initially received the challenge word “reflection” from Three Creative Studios; I immediately thought of all the beautiful images I’ve seen of things reflected in water, and wanted to do something like that.  But since the parameters of this challenge that I’ve set for myself are that all of them must use the same techniques (so that I can grow in them); and on a black background so they would have continuity – I wasn’t quite sure how to translate water in that way. And while I puzzled over that, another idea came to me.



Reflection - as in remembrance.

As soon as that meaning came to me, I thought about how I often reflect on my childhood, and that whenever I do; what immediately comes to my mind is this static image of myself: always with my dog, standing or in the act of walking  away from the viewer (myself – which is quite interesting) through the fields; or walking through the forest, the sun dappling the leaves and creating sun spots on the forest floor. In that case, the image I see is of my own hand, brushing against the leaves and branches, the sun dapples leaving light spots on my skin.


This is an idyllic, pastoral view of my youth – and though I did spend days, weeks, perhaps over the years – the time amounted to months - in solitary splendor, travelling the woods and fields in and around my parents’ property with my dog; and though I was extraordinarily happy at those times: the reality of my past is that it was an extremely unhappy one.




That pastoral pastiche that I have in my head is something like a placeholder – the prettiest ribbon you can imagine - wrapped around a dark, heavy steel box, weighted with chains and locks too big too hold with just one set of hands – and the content of that box is the grim reality of my childhood.


Nevertheless – that box and its contents do not make the placeholder less true - the time I spent in the fields and the woods with my intensely loved dog is far more real to me than anything in that box.  Those images bring me peace, and are the building blocks of the present deep contentment in my life.


“Life is an unrelenting comedy. Therein lies the tragedy.”