Andrea's Reach

11 x 14 hand-dyed cotton, textile paint, machine stitched

"The desire to reach the stars is ambitious.  The desire

to reach hearts is wise and possible."  Maya Angelou

When I saw the new theme I googled quotes with the word "reach" and as soon as I read this particular one visualized a variation of this quilt.  I prefer to have at least two or three designs to chose from, but even after waiting until just a few days ago, nothing else came to mind, so decided that this was the one that wanted to be made!  It also allowed me to use the heart shibori fabric that I made in a class over the summer.  The challenge was to add the imagery in a way that would not completely detract from the background, but still convey hands reaching for the hearts.  Once I stitched the hands and hearts outline I experimented with making them a bit more prominent, but anything that I tried ( fill-in stitching and grey organza cut-outs ) overpowered the shibori hearts.  At that point, even though it did not feel like the quilt was complete, I thought it could be.  Then literally, in the middle of the night, I thought of stenciling in the imagery with a transparent grey textile paint, which I made even more transparent by adding an extender.  I was very pleased with the result, and feel that I finally found the balance between background and imagery that I wanted.