Wrack Line XI: Tides in Godlight

Wrack Line XI: Tides in Godlight   33x26

This quilt began with the shimmery fabric that many of the yo-yos are made of.  I started making yo-yos with that fabric, and then I found the lovely silk dupioni on the sale tables at JoAnns.  As I worked on the quilt, I remembered a writer, I think it was Wallace Stegner, talking about that golden light that sometimes arrives at nightfall and makes everything seem golden and splendored.  He called it godlight.

Godlight also deepens the shadows.  The black chiffon ribbons are the deep shadows that seem to always lurk even in the most beautiful light.  If I'm in the right frame of mind (and for me that right frame of mind happens when I've been consistent in my yoga and meditation practice), the shadows can make the light more beautiful.  They also remind me of the kelp and seaweed that get tied up in the wrack the tides bring in.

I've been sewing yo-yos down now for nearly eleven hours. (I know because I watched the entire season of Drop Dead Diva while I was sewing them--listened really, my head only came up every once in a while.  Yeah for Netflix on the Wii.).  I'm not sure how long the yo-yos took to make, but on average, I can make fifteen in an hour.  I'm not sure how many there are on this quilt, but probably over one hundred.  I love how the machine quilting I did on the bottom ripples the fabric a bit and makes it look like the ripples the water makes on the sand as it pulls back into the ocean. 

Off to put a label and a hanging sleeve on and then the quilt is headed to the Member Show at Dayton Visual Arts Center. 

detail, Wrack Line XI: Tides in Godlight