Parting is such sweet sorrow

Two larger pieces, made quite a while ago, have gone to new homes. I'm sad to see them go, but isn't that one of the reasons they were made, in the hope that someone else would like them enough to buy them?

The first, eventually titled "A Rumination of Roses", was made - or rather, started - in Sian Martin's workshop at the first CQ summer school - the year was 2006, and I blogged about it here and here.

 It took another year or so before I finished stitching the background, and then it ended up back in the cupboard. It holds all sorts of good memories for me, and I'm happy to send it out into the world.

The other quilt that sold at the open studio, "Blown Away", was one of my breakthrough pieces, in the sense of working from "an inspiration" in a way that I hadn't done before. It originated in one of the "analyse a painting" challenges on the now-defunct AQL forum (Alternative Quilt List). That was in about 2002; I blogged about the making of this quilt in 2008 (here).

Blown Away is probably one of the most colourful pieces I've made - and it's definitely the work with the smallest pieces! Each leaf is about the size of a fingernail, machine-appliqued onto several sections in a series of layers. Fabrics were chosen for their colours and run the gamut from dyed scrim to metallic silk dupion. Again, it holds happy memories of gathering fabrics, making a small section, realising how it could be developed, making more sections, expanding the colour range, figuring out how to attach the bits and add to the surface -- and of the sense of progress during the making of the piece. From the start there was a kind of certainty that it would become a finished piece - somehow the idea felt right.