Much Peace Much Love

I have decided to list the wall hanging created with a piece of my symbols fabric. I have delayed actually listing it for sale because of a small, only visible if I look for it, spot of discoloration on the vintage bias binding used for the design. It took me a long time to decide not to add embellishments to cover the spot. It would detract from my image of the piece, so I decided to let it speak for it's self. My photography leaves something to be desired! What looks like white thread on the edge of the border is actually the reflection of light on the mono filament thread I used to quilt.

The story behind the background fabric is an interesting one. I think it was 2 years ago, there was a challenge on http://www.quiltart.com/, the Internet list serve I have mentioned before. It was to represent our culture. It took me some time to decide how to do that. Shortly after the call out for the challenge the Pentacle was accepted as an image allowed on Military grave markers. This was a long hard fought success by numerous people. It became one of 39 accepted images ranging from the symbol for Atheists to obscure Christian sects. I down loaded images of the 37 symbols available, two are copy right protected. I hand cut card stock stencils of each. I proceeded to create a variety of discharged fabric pieces with these symbols in search of the one I wanted for the challenge. I have used several of these as background for whole cloth quilted wall hangings. The one seen as my avatar on this blog at the moment is the one I submitted for the Culture Challenge. It had been for sale in Etsy when my daughter saw it and asked if she could have it. It hangs in her apartment in Tennessee! I was honored she would want my work in her living space! I have one other unfinished quilt from this series and a lot of potentials in waiting! I have listed a few these samples for sale on Etsy, and have several not currently active. I haven't looked lately to see if there are additional accepted symbols, but I suspect the options keep growing! The images below are of two of these foundation pieces. The collection of quilts produced for this challenge can be seen here: http://www.quiltart.com/challenges/symbols/index.html My entry is in the top right, without its black border, I wasn't able to get a response when I asked them to re post it with the border. I think it looks significantly different, but not a necessarily bad presentation.





I haven't done discharging to speak of for a long time, perhaps this summer I will get back to the process for a few of the possibilities running in my head! I love the organic look it creates.

Well my work week is calling me, day jobs make the world go round! Well, at least my finances! One day I will enjoy the option of staying home to create art that sells well enough to make the day job an option not a norm. But not today!