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Free Falling Upward: Gravity and the Aspen Trees, 18″ x 20.5″

This is a new quilt which I submitted to the Great Wisconsin Mini Quilt Challenge.

It quilt depicts my experience in Estes Park, CO gazing at the sky through a clone* of aspen. The quaking sound of the breeze playing the aspen leaves caught my attention. The momentary suspension of time reversed the pull of gravity, magnetically drawing my soul to glorious heights… free falling upward to freedom.

A fat quarter of my own hand-dyed fabric provides the background of this quilt. The ice-dyed piece has a wonderfully organic look which I tried to keep intact by carefully cutting each piece and maintaining the exact location and alignment with respect to the other pieces.

I tipped the center square and quilted it with a single line spiral that starts wide and narrows as it reaches the center, then retraces the same path going back outward. This seemed to mimick my own movement when I was looking up and around.

The aspen tree has a long, deep history of symbolism to many cultures: strength, protection, focus, purity, awareness, connectivity, transformation, to name a few. It has even been thought to have magical powers, and to be the voice of God.

Besides their beauty, I particularly like that they grow in colonies, creating wonderful communities. Also, because the roots are deep, well below the heat of a forest fire, new sprouts appear after the fire burns out making them the Phoenix of the fire in my mind.

Live well. Quilt well.

*”Clone” of aspen: Aspen regenerate vegetatively by shoots and suckers arising along its long lateral roots. Root sprouting results in many genetically identical trees, which, in aggregate are called a “clone.”

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The back story: I recently decided to make a series of quilts out of some fat quarters that I dyed. The fabrics were created using an ice-dyeing method. Each has a unique look, and all have an incredibly organic feel to them.

After some time, I decided that each fabric will be the background to a quilt that explores “Forces of Nature and Powerful Forces of Human Nature.”

The fabric in the quilt pictured above felt like pictures I’ve seen of Supernovas. (More on that in the next blog post.) When Project Quilting’s 11.3 challenge was hearts, I created the “before” quilt pictured above; and, in typical fashion, I posted it just minutes before the deadline.

At that point, I took a step back to look at it and immediately grabbed my seam ripper.

I couldn’t live with it. The quilt had two major problems. First, the facing binding was a mistake. My eye kept falling off the edge. I was missing the gorgeous outer space in the quilt. It needed a frame.

More importantly, the quilting was a problem. I quilted it as if the background was negative space. Often the background is negative space in a quilt. However, in this series of quilts, the background is the focus. I’m taking great pains to keep each background in its original, organic order as I cut the fabric to construct the series. In my first run at Supernova, the quilting took the focus off the background and obscured the gorgeous fabric.

So, a lot of quilting came out. A small amount of new quilting was added. And, a small traditional binding was added to frame it…. Deep cleansing breath. I can live with it now.

My next post will contain the complete title and artist’s statement for this quilt.

Live well. Quilt well.

Wandering With Abandon is going to Quilt Expo in Madison, WI, then will be on the road for two years as part of an exhibit of quilts based on the traditional Log Cabin block.

Here’s it’s story:

“You belong among the wildflowers 
You belong in a boat out at sea
Sail away, kill off the hours
You belong where you feel free."
                                       - Tom Petty

The visual inspiration for this quilt came from a field of wildflowers in Switzerland where my heart wandered with complete inhibition….total freedom.

It is made from very square blocks and quilted with very straight lines; but the varied block sizes, the irregular grid and random color placement make it visually wonky.

Philosophically, the term “Abandonment” refers to the infinite freedom of humanity to exist without condemnation.

I hope your eye wanders through this quilt with abandon.

Live well. Quilt well.

Lisa

This challenge was simply a size restriction. The quilt had to be bigger than a bread box, (defined as 16″ x 8″.) I’m on the road again, and sewing in a makeshift studio without my favorite machines. I started a quilt and like it enough that I didn’t want to rush the finish, especially in an imperfect sewing environment. So, I rushed out this 37″ x 37″ baby quilt. I pillow-cased the top and quilted it by hand-tying a few spots with thread. I’m pretty sure I’ll be machine quilting over this when I get home.

In the meantime, I’m considering writing this up as a free pattern. If there is enough interest to make it worth the time, I’ll do so. Watch the PQ website– quilt 99. If it gets 150 or more votes, I’ll be creating that free pattern.

Live Well. Quilt Well.

Lisa