What Am I Doing? - Comfort

In January the Cork Textiles Network Newsletter issued a challenge to give us all a little something to work towards…..maybe an actual exhibition later this year. The title is “Comfort” and the theme is: what has given us comfort during this last year or so of the Covid-19 Pandemic?

Going through my usual initial process of word-association I thought of family, friends, conversations, tea and biscuits, cake.....WINE! I quickly realized that one thing that has really taken me out of myself and allowed me to switch off even in my highest anxiety, is quilting. Specifically, Free Motion Quilting.

As with the EQA Picture Swap project the challenge for me here is scale – it can be any textile medium but it must be unframed, unmounted and….8”x8”. The hope is to display all of the pieces together, arranged in a sort of patchwork quilt. Cute idea!

In fact, in this case the scale of this isn’t really a problem. I’ve been making little textile postcards during the last year or so - some applique, some FMQ and some a mix of techniques - so when I read about the “Comfort” challenge the idea of creating a little whole cloth quilt really appealed to me. So, I got stuck straight in. I have a stack of small pieces of silk in a veritable rainbow of colours and I've been positively salivating over them for weeks. This really did seem like a heaven sent opportunity to go right ahead and sew into them, so I played around with a few ideas........and I've already completed one, called ‘Winter’. FMQ snowflakes glistenon pale grey silk. I used a Signature Laserbrite thread and I'm delighted with the results. 

I think there may be a few more to come – maybe a series? More silk, please!