Far Away Stars / Cloudy Day

Far Away Stars, detail

velvet, silk, cotton, natural dyes, cotton thread, hand quilted to two layers of wool 2024

233 x 132 cm or 91 x 52 inches 

Far Away Stars:  Full view

This piece was started around 2011 when I was teaching myself about natural dyes.  What you see here are my small beige learning experiments that I made while using plants from my yard.  The fabrics are joined together in horizontal rows.  Since those first days, I have added more three-dimensional horizontal tucks to catch your eye and that refer to the horizon line.  

The horizon line is our constant friend that gives a place to look beyond and enter a reverie.  

Cloudy Day, full view

Cloudy Day, cotton and velvet shapes attached with cotton and wool thread to the wool backing cloth.

Hand stitched and hand quilted.  233 x 132 cm or 91 x 52 inches  2024

Cloudy Day is a surprise on the second side of this quilt. 

It is one of my two-sided quilts.

There is a horizon line on this side too.

In progress for 13 years, Far Away Stars / Cloudy Day had its first public showing in 2024 in the UK at the Festival of Quilts.   Part of the solo exhibition:  Softer and Dreamier  

This two-sided quilt was then part of Quilts = Art = Quilts at the Schweinfurth Art Centre, Auburn New York from October - January 2025   

Prayer To The Sky

Prayer To The Sky   2019
60" x 64.5"  or 152 x 164 cm
Three layers of wool, dyed with indigo or madder, hand stitched.

 The inner layer of madder-dyed wool is revealed with slashes into the top layer.

Prayer to The Sky side b  2019
three layers of wool, dyed with indigo and madder and hand stitched
the inner layers of madder and indigo tint the transparent back layer of white wool into a dream-like atmosphere.

Prayer to The Sky detail side b 2019

Featured in the Heartwork, Handwork, Homework lecture presented by Miranda Bouchard, Judy Martin and Penny Berens at the SAQA virtual conference held March 2020.

Part of Quilt National 2021, May- September 2021 at the Dairy Barn in Athens Ohio.

Prayer to the Sky hanging in the Dairy Barn, summer of 2021.  This photo sent to me by the Dairy Barn.    Prayer To the Sky sold into private collection in Waterloo, Ontario July 2021.

In 2024, this quilt was loaned for the exhibition In the Middle of the World when it was mounted in Artsplace, Annapolis Royal Nova Scotia.