Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Art Quilt Challenge - Opposites Attract

I was a little challenged with this theme as I wasn't really certain what I wanted to do. As I look through the pictures that I downloaded to use as inspiration, I see a lot of Yin/Yang in various colors. I have black and white hands holding. I have images of good and evil struggling. My first plan was to do a fire and ice Yin/Yang.

However, one evening I was standing outside with the dog as he did his final checking of the house and yard for bedtime. While he is performing his duties, I try to find the moon and acknowledge its beauty in the sky. This evening, the moon was just a tiny sliver and I stood there and watched it. It suddenly dawned on me that the moon would not be visible if it were not for the sun as the light of the moon is just the reflection from the sun and the reason it was a sliver on this evening was because the Earth was casting her shadow. And that is when I decided that I wanted to show these two bodies.

Here is my Opposites Attract quilt:
I wanted something that would express both the warmth and glow of the sun as well as the dark of the night...but that is a lot to try and express in a small quilt. I used the remains of some strip sets that I put together for a previous quilt for the warm tones and added some blues. I then attempted to do a bargello for the background. The part that I am happiest with is my actual quilting. I'm not a very good machine quilter, yet. I have a tendency to get really nervous when I'm quilting and get stuck not knowing what I want to do or where to go next. Therefore, with this quilt, I drew my pattern out on paper and pinned it to the quilt and then just traced the pattern with the needle. It still isn't perfect, but I'm happy with it.