I made this quilt in 1993. The quilt shop that I taught at had just become aware of Hoffman batiks a few years before that. I was giving programs and workshops in many areas in northern IL at the time so I shopped at all of the quilt shops in the area and finally had a good selection. I started out with 1/4 of the center portion thinking I was going to make a colorwash vest. After I had made 3 sections and liked them together on a design wall I designed the 4th section to melt them all together.
Most of the batiks in that time period were pink, gray, purple and turquoise. The name of this piece is "Cosmic Beauty". I loved the crazy pieced columns on each side. In fact I loved this piece so much it hurt to sell it but I needed the money. That was in 1995 if my memory hasn't failed me. My friend who purchased this one and 2 others has moved a couple times and thought it was time to send them back to me. I am overwhelmed with her generosity.
She also purchased this one that was made in 1994. It is called "Doorway to the Unknown". I was going through a major change in my life at the time I made it. I did a lot of crazy piecing during the early 1990s. I put on facings instead of a binding on this piece. The crazy pieced columns are mostly batik fabrics and all of the rest is regular quilting cotton prints.
This is the third piece that she purchased in 1999. I started it in 1998 and at the end of that year I started experiencing a heart beat irregularity, a severe one. In January 1999 I finally went to a doctor when I was afraid I was dying. After all, we need our hearts and there was no heart disease in my family so this was scary. The healing began but I still was scared and I had to hurry and finish this piece, one that I thought might be the last piece I was ever going to make.
I used Cherrywood hand dyed fabric for the stylized flowers that are free motion embroidered before the layers were assembled.
I made several pieces with this type of flowers but this is the best one.
They are generic flowers with a slight resemblance to the shapes of real flowers.
This photo in low light coming from the right shows the quilting. At that time I free motion quilted all of my colorwash quilts with clear monofilament thread. I quilted grass at the bottom and circular 4 and 5 petal groups in the top and meandering in the border.
