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Falling Fabrics
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1989-1990 - 57" x 78" Private Collection
Commercial cotton, machine pieced, hand appliquéd and embroidered, machine and hand quilted, metallic threads, and trapunto.
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I began Falling Fabrics in December 1989 and finished in the Spring of 1990 with a combination of left over fabrics from five previous quilt projects. This hand embroidery quilt came to me in a dream and represents a passage for me from banker to a quilt maker. The top of the quilt was started in a confused and depressed state of mind, as I tried to deal with my job at a bank, on the verge of take over by the government. As I slowly appliquéd the top of the piece I began to put my priorities in perspective. A dream followed which finalized the design for this quilt. As the pieces of fabric began to fall from the top I began to look objectively at my job and refused to allow the pressures to overtake me. The bottom part of the quilt shows a calmer mind beginning to cope with my job objectively, but influenced by an underlying tension nonetheless.
The embroidered animals were inspired by Christmas ornaments sent to me by my mother from Hong Kong in 1970 and have become a record of her gifts scattered among the family. Some of them (giraffes) were from sketches I made fifteen to twenty years ago. In my dream these animals were having a fun time and I tried to show this in the quilt. I relaxed as I did hand embroidery with each animal and appliqued them to the top. This quilt became a joyful experience and a counter balance to work. This is the first hand embroidery quilt I made.
The results spoke from my soul and began the process to change the direction my life was going. My bank was taken over by the RTC in September of 1990, so I went to another bank the following year, but then it was too late. The creative processes was calling me now and I decided to follow the voice of my heart. Falling Fabrics spoke to the child inside and brought forth my playful nature long buried in adulthood.
As a quilt maker this piece also represents my transition from hand to machine quilting. Until this time all my larger pieces had been hand quilted. Over the years I had experimented with machine quilting and finally felt confident enough to tackle a large quilt. This is my first large machine quilted piece and the only one to date that combines both hand and machine quilting. I learned from Falling Fabrics that I can obtain the meditative frame of mind even when machine quilting.
Falling Fabrics won a blue ribbon at the National Quilting Association's 1990 show in Knoxville Tennessee.
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