Wish Drops

For our previous theme, Dreams, I focused on the "hopes and aspirations" connotation of dreaming, and I even titled my piece Wishes and Dreams.

So when our current theme, Wishes, was announced, I felt like "I just did that, now what do I do?"
But an image quickly popped into my head, based on a childhood practice of blowing dandelion seeds up into the sky to make a wish.

This piece is definitely influenced by two of the other Endeavourers.  First, Janine, with her magical story-telling pieces like Dream in Color, and second, Catherine, (especially her piece Cycles) because of the way she chooses illustrative elements -- to me she chooses elements that are essential, but never predictable or dull. 

So in this piece I was going for more of a pared-down look, but one that evoked a story.

As I said, when we were young, we blew dandelion seeds up into the sky to make a wish.  I am amazed the grown-ups never stopped us, because we must have been spreading dandelions all over their perfect lawns.  Maybe they were just glad for a moment of peace.

I decided to make my own folklore to add to this childhood belief, to say that the wish seeds sail up to the moon and slowly fill it up.  As we all make wishes and wait patiently, the moon fills up to overflowing, and then our wishes fall back to earth as beautiful, unique drops.  If we reach out and capture them, our wishes come true, but maybe not in the sense we were expecting. 

"Wish Drops"

Detail of the dandelion heads and leaves.

Detail of the full moon and the waning moon.

Detail of the falling wish drops.

I had so much fun working on this piece.  I try out new techniques for every piece, and this time I played with decorative machine stitches, bobbin work, and making covered buttons.

Although I tried on new styles inspired by Janine and Catherine, I stuck with my usual vocabulary of materials -- silk, Lumiere paints, Lutradur, beads, and all kinds of shiny and sparkly threads.  I also repeated some techniques I have used before, such as mixing realistic and abstract imagery, padding shapes for more 3-D effects, and placing shapes to expand the regular quilt rectangle.

I would like to add more beading, and more stitching to integrate the free-standing shapes with the background better.  But I enjoyed working on this piece and I look forward to spending more time with it.

It Started with a Caterpillar

I was on my daily walk, pondering our "Texture" theme.  "Let's see," I thought, "let me start with the basics.  There's the texture of cloth itself...I could do something with the cotton flower, cotton boll, and finished cotton cloth...No!  I have those cocoons!  I can do silk!"

With that thought, the whole idea popped into my head so quickly that I am a little afraid I must have seen something like it in a book.

Quite often on my walks I find these cocoons fallen out of oak trees.  Close up, the intricacy and luster of their strands is amazing, and I have written more about them here.

Cocoon

Close-up of strands.

One time I was lucky enough to find one unhatched, and kept it in the house until it broke out so I could discover what species it was.

Polyphemus moth.

I was also thinking about stitching the design of his antennae into the corners of the quilt.

I have some big pieces of vintage tussah silk that I bought years ago at an antique shop.    Tussah is defined as "a strong, coarse light brown silk produced by various undomesticated Asiatic silkworms," in Fairchild's Dictionary of Textiles. I love its sandy texture and strength.  For this quilt, I dyed some of it with Jacquard silk paints and Dyna-flow paints, but left some its natural color.

Then I mixed in Thai silk and Burma silk which I get every year from a fair trade booth at the International Quilt Festival.

Silk from Spirit of the Artisan.  Thai silk on the top, Burma silk on the bottom.

Both of these are changeable silks -- with warp one color, and weft another. Depending on the angle of the light, different colors appear. The Thai silk is very fine and regular in appearance, with a black warp and solid color weft -- both warp and weft are about equal in size.  The Burma silk also has warp is very fine, but the weft is much heavier than the warp, and has big slubs in it.   Some of the color combinations are gold warp with sea green weft, and royal blue warp with lavender weft.

Originally I planned to stitch some of the cocoons onto the quilt, to do a lot of stitching with silk thread, and maybe even to add some embellishments made from old silk scarves.  But as I worked, I just loved the contrast between the types of silk so much, subtle though they are, that I didn't want to add anything.  I just wanted it to invite viewers to touch it and feel the difference between the nubby tussah silk and the slubby lustrous silk.

Tussah and Taffeta (maybe not strictly silk taffeta, but it makes a good title).

The lighter blue is dyed tussah, the dark plum is Thai silk, and the shiny rose is Burma silk.

So even though our local cocoons and moths were my inspiration, they did not make it into this quilt!

The cocoon inspiration on the quilt corner.

I had many other ideas for this theme, and I hope I get around to making some of them.  And I know after I read the other posts, I will have even more ideas!