Monday, July 05, 2010

Challenge 46, Pam Clark

I finally was able to do a direct post after jpd explained where to find the simple directions. Thanks for your help in unravelling this mystery for me. This is the picture of the quilt, which I was able to upload to the photo gallery earlier. Last year I took a class with Scott Murkins, who was also our quilt show judge. His specialty is strata quilts. I had made several blocks in that class, but couldn't decide how to put them together. When this Challenge came out, I thought by combining four blocks, I could abstractly simulate a geode. Since most geode's centers are light, I made this one dark. I know this is a little bit of a stretch of the imagination, but I love the colors in this little quilt that measures about 16" x 16".
When my sister, Nancy, and I were younger, we had to walk 1/4 mile to our mail box everyday in the summer. We loved to pick up rocks, take them home, and crack them open to see what they looked like inside. We were always astounded at how beautiful they were. We'd find an ugly old gray rock and when we cracked it open with a hammer, there was no telling what we might find. Our favorites were the ones that had flecks of blue in them, which were quite rare, but very beautiful. When we found some that had gold or silver flecks in them, we always wondered if it was "real gold". Of course, it was probably iron pyrite or something, but we always had high hopes that we had found the mother lode. This quilt is symbolic of the flecks and veins that we used to find in rocks. We visited a rock shop where the owner cracked open the rocks and then polished them and they were spectacular.
In this quilt I used metallic threads to quilt it to add those silver and gold flecks. It doesn't show up well in the photo, but I hope you get the idea





6 comments:

Carole said...

What a great way to capture those memories.. looking inside of the the rocks..
I really like all the colors.
Glad you could finally post.

fastfriday said...

I love your story and that you were able to use some previous work for this challenge. Interesting fabrics!
Chris Predd

fastfriday said...

Pam, fun quilt, I really love the colors. I esp. like that the fabrics repeat in different sections of the strata, so much more interesting visually, but the repeats link it all together. As you say the mettalic thread doesn't show up well in the photo, but I am sure that in real life it is more apparent. Geodes are a lot of fun a gray package that opens to surprises either of crystal or color (sometimes )

Kathy Walker

janice pd said...

Great job using color and abstracting a geode. Your piece, like the real thing is full of surprises!

Joni said...

What fun fabrics you have used. I love the fresh and exciting feel to this piece. Great job!

Cherie in Del Mar said...

Cool abstraction! Really interesting color combo too. I would love to see a bit of beading or foiling to represent the always present sparkley quartz, either solid or crystals, of the centers in geodes. Nice the way it is though...
Cherie