Begin Again

Earlier this year, after 20+ years in a big old house in Oak Park, my brother- and sister-in-law, Mike and Brooke, downsized and moved into a condo in Evanston.  That is the origin of the name that she chose for this work.

Brooke has very eclectic tastes, and the furniture and accessories in their new place reflect this. Among these accessories are some stained glass panels.  But she saved the wall over their fireplace for a unique piece and commissioned me to make it.

Brooke is an artist, and she came up with this design as a starting point:

It picks up on other colors in the room, and also echoes some of the elements of the stained glass.

I took that rough design and put it into Excel and began playing with the colors, the arrangement, the sizes, and the shapes.  We went back and forth over a number of iterations (discovering in the process that an iPad does NOT always accurately display the Excel graphics!), and eventually agreed on a final design.

Here is the result:

Rather than using a traditional piecing approach (except for the light and dark gray backgrounds), I decided to cut the pieces to size and then fuse them on. This is the same approach I took with   Reflections [Visualize Whirled Peas]. Then I stiple quilted the background and did horizontal, vertical, and circular (as appropriate) free-motion quilting in the objects.

Finally, the finished quilt (46 x 28) was mounted on wooden stretcher bars.

And here it is in its place of honor: