Under Drifting Stars
2022, very light weight cotton with a silk batt, 86 x 91 inches.
A world of spirit thinly veiled, a secret mystery. Our cosmos, our day and night, the sun and the moon, and also the stars. Childhood and also eternity. Also emotions. Also dreams.
I make quilts that are large enough to cover a family.
The cotton was first treated with tannin (sumac leaves) and then dot-painted with water that had a little iron powder in it. Judy painted the fabrics on her birthday in July 2020, during the height of the pandemic. In the spring of 2022, she arranged the fabrics and hand pieced them. Over the summer, she hand embroidery-quilted the large quilt in a hoop.
The upper half of the quilt has shapes that resemble a moon and some suns, or maybe all of them are moons.
The dots were outlined with quilting thread and pulled tightly so that they would puff out. Some of them are so puffy, they look as if they are appliqued, but they are painted.
A thicker wool thread was used to outline the larger shapes.
The lower part of the quilt also has painted dots, but this time the artist embroidered over each dot with embroidery floss to make rough satin stitch dots.
The lower half of the quilt was quilted with pink silk thread, while the upper half was quilted with white silk thread. The subtle change of colour of thread is noticeable.
Yes that is a seam that joins the upper and lower halves of the quilt and it has been made into a tuck to create a wavering horizon line.
Under Drifting Stars made its premier in the prestigious Quilt National 23 exhibition in Athens Ohio in May of 2023.
It was awarded the Handwork award.
A video of Judy speaking about making this quilt can be viewed here.
The exhibition of Quilt National continued at the Dairy Barn until September 11, 2024, and then toured to Canton Museum of Art in Canton, Ohio and the Historical Society of Clay County in Morehead, Minnesota in 2023-2024.
