Judy S.- Reflections of Lancaster, PA

Reflection: 

1. A time of meditation looking at my life. 2.The light reflecting images in the items around me.

This is from a photo I took when I was working the AQS show in Lancaster, PA one year. Every morning I enjoyed a walk down to a cafe for a bowl of cereal and a cup of coffee before the show opened. 

It was a time of reflection as I watched people hurry off to work and school. How lucky I was to have this opportunity to be at this table every morning. 

I have always admired artwork with reflections in glassware and I really wanted to create this quilt with that effect. I set this at morning sunrise with a piece of fabric I hand painted so that this could be for anyone anywhere.

I used Cherrywood fabrics for all of the items on the table. They have wonderful gradations that made this possible.

I did add a little paint, but mostly the fabric and thread were my media to make the color happen.

Sara's Reflection

I really enjoyed this theme and initially thought of the wonderful image of trees reflected in a pond. However, I always try to do something that does not occur to me first so before starting to work I mulled on the topic. Then I saw the opening of the Olympics in Brazil and was captivated on how each culture that influenced Brazil left an mark in a patchwork motif. Soon after I was at a gathering at my girlfriend's house where we were encouraged to meditate on the words of the Shema (an important prayer or declaration in Judaism) and create a "torn paper midrash" (basically a construction paper collage story) to illustrate the prayer. It was during a walk where I came upon merging the two inspirations for this quilt. Since meditation requires sitting still, a skill I sorely lack, I am more likely to be inspired during walking or sewing! This got rather theological/philosophical. I'm sure there are multiple understandings of the prayer.

The blue hebrew letters were stencilled using a commercial stencil (Pitome Publishing) and Shiva paint sticks. It is the beginning word "Shema"  of "Shema,Yisroel  hashem  eloheynu, hashem echod " which translates " Hear O Israel -(Listen Up), The Lord is our God, the Lord is One." (Here Hashem is The Name substituting for the name that is said only in worship). (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shema_Yisrael ) . This always brings to my mind how all of us are bound together as being made in God's image and how all of creation is part of the essence of the one Infinite creator. The "world" in my quilt is imaged by a freeform piecing of fabric which was cut and fused and sewn onto the cloth. It was quilted using lines for longitude and latitude. The Infinitiy signs were inked on (I imagined it as looping around the earth into an infinity sign.) Background quilting is in spirals as an homage to the primordial wind in the beginning of the Bible,

Kathy's Reflection: "The Gazing Ball"

[I must apologize (again!) for being late with this posting.  I actually finished this quilt about six weeks ago, but encountered tremendous challenges uploading pictures, and getting into the blog.  My sincere apologies......] 

The quilt was designed using an Amy Butler Stencil, green fabric paint, silk fabric, cotton fabric, and lots of glass beads.      As I was designing the quilt, my husband said it looked like a Three-Dimensional "Gazing Ball," and thus it has become this lovely piece !

The stencil was printed onto a piece of somewhat sheer white silk, which was placed on top of the "wrong side" of a gray and white "Leaf Fabric," and batting.   Using the leaf patterns from the fabric, I free-motion quilted these layers using a Madeira 30 wt. variegated thread for the leaves, and Sulky Shimmer thread around the green "petal" structures.  [This was the first layer of the quilt.]

I cut this quilted design into a circle, then using a bright lime-y green Sulky 40 wt. thread, machine appliqued it to another layer of the gray and white Leaf Fabric that had been covered with a shear sparkle-y white fabric.  After layering this rather complex quilt "top" with batting and backing fabric, I free motion quilted all the layers together using a 40 wt. Sulky rayon thread.

The binding is the same leaf pattern fabric; this time, you're looking straight at the fabric which shows all the true colors.   

The final touch was to hand-sew all those lovely silver glass beads around the perimeter of the Gazing Ball.  The beads reflect tremendous amounts of light.  

   

My "Reflection" Quilt demonstrates three depths of the one, simple leaf fabric by using additional sheer fabrics to reflect (or obscure ?)  the fabric in each of the layers.    The silver beads then "reflect" light from all the different light sources in the room.