April's Take It Further Challenge

The challenge Sharon posed for the month of April was, "How do you see change?" She gave examples from her own life of times when she felt change was good and other times when it was not so welcome. I think all of us have had those experiences! And then there are various degrees to which we look forward to or dread change. How to depict this visually?I finally settled on a door. I figured how quickly one opens that door would indicate how welcome - or not- that change is in your life.

That was early in the month. Since then I've been working on a swap quilt and little else. But when I finished the swap quilt a few days ago I started thinking about this challenge again. I went online to find images of doors I might be able to use as inspiration. That search generated a couple of new ideas, one of which was to use a pair of doors rather than just one. I especially liked this picture of a pair of doors in Dublin, Ireland, taken by Luka Gentili. One door could represent happy, welcome, changes and the other could represent those changes we're sometimes forced to make whether we want to or not. And thus this 4" x 6" postcard quilt was born:


The photograph makes it look a little wonkier than it really is. The top is machine pieced (not paper pieced). The red trim around the doors is only a quarter of an inch wide. The hinges are created with bugle beads. One door knob is a glass bead, the other a pearl. I've discovered the blanket stitch on my sewing machine is a nice way to finish off the edges of these little quilts. I'm not using the stiff interfacing (Timtex or Peltex) in these postcard quilts. They're just a top, cotton batting, and watercolor paper for the back. They're a little less stout than postcard quilts made with the interfacing but I like the paper for the back because it makes it easy for me to label the work. For this application it's working fine.

And now, just for fun, a recent studio picture:

Happy Spring!