Ice, by Sharon Robinson

sky painfully blue  

icicle piercing my heart

his disdain for me

This piece is 12" x 16."  I like my haiku, and I sort of like the quilt, but I'm not sure that it illustrates the poem.   The poem is about emotional coldness as well as seasonal cold.  I think that the icicle might not have been the best metaphor to represent that, because mental images of happy "winter wonderlands" are evoked by the icicle image.   

I really enjoyed thinking up haiku.  As others have said, I'd like to do more of these interpretations.  I started out wanting to work more abstractly, but I didn't like where that took me, so I cut out some realistic icicles.  Then it really seemed to want a horizon line.  Something was still missing, so I added the moon. That was the first thing I quilted, in a radial pattern.  It looked like a big blue grapefruit slice, so that had to go!  This was my first attempt at using metallic thread and I had a lot of fun using it for the free-motion quilting on the icicles.  I thought it would add perspective to have some horizontal lines on the snow, but the thread and I stopped getting along at that point.   So I reverted back to straight lines for the sky area.  Now I wish I'd just left it plain, but I thought they would help with the vertical emphasis of the icicles.  There were a few other technical glitches, but overall I am glad that I was able to finish it this weekend. (Except binding, which will happen this afternoon during the football game!)


Here's a detail shot:

I learned a lot on this challenge, and I'm eager to hear your comments.  

Thanks for a fun challenge, Kathy!