My newest quilt

I recently finished my last commission for a while. I'm not taking anymore so that I can work on some ideas I have and let my own creations fully come forth. This one is of the god/goddess Shiva Nataraj. This one was such a joy to make. So much self exploration came out of me making this quilt and it pushed the limits of my abilities which is one of the aspects of quilting I appreciate most. I almost always try something completely new to me in each quilt and my skills not only grow, but I also grow with whatever the piece is. I spend a lot of time in quiet contemplation while putting pieces together and when they are tied so heavily to symbolism and ideology I find myself really exploring what that means for me in my life and what I can take from it.

I put a face on Shiva which is something I have tried to steer clear of since I started working on the goddess series. I have always appreciated the self interpretation of what the faces should look like, but the challenge of making his face look right and normal and not scary was a big challenge, but it would not have been complete with out a face. I also put a face on the ego and now, I feel like I have overcome a big obstacle and I will really put thought into faces when working on future pieces. Something else I did within this piece is use this stuff called Angelina Fibers. It is a heat bonded tensile like stuff that I used to create the flames in his hands to make them really stand out. I have been wanting to use them, but I was intimidated by them based on things I have heard about them, but now that I have used them and like how they turned out, I will be using more of them in future quilts. I love embellishment. I think it adds another dimension to a quilt. You can of course over embellish, but just the right amount will make a quilt just shine!


Our good friend Chad shot the photos for me. As always he did a great job!