Super Moon!

After posting this piece, “Until All the Stars Are Counted,” in honor of the lunar event, I realized that I had not written a post about this piece. So…

First step, find amazing ice-dyed bamboo fabric in Rebecca Kemble’s booth at Festival…then a year later, discover Wendy Richardson’s glorious shibori fabrics:

When SAQA announces an exhibit with a theme of tranquility, decide that you have the perfect ingredients for a mysterious planet and a night sky! I actually sketched out this (admittedly simple) composition before wielding my rotary cutter ;). I decided I wanted part of the planet to be the foreground…so all that was required was MistyFusing the back of Wendy’s shibori and slicing a gentle arc through the fabric.

The night sky was less obvious given the very pale indigo hue of Rebecca’s fabric…until I took Judy Coates Perez’s amazing all-day class on using fabric paints. I spread out a plastic dry cleaning bag on the floor, then taped the fabric (cut to slightly larger than my desired finished size) down. Lots of blue and black and iridescent paint stirred together and a full moon (freezer paper pressed to the fabric) and we’re good to go:

…finished and drying, under canine supervision:

As you can see from the picture, I chose the very lightest portion of the fabric to remain unpainted and moon-like. Planet fused to lower left portion of fabric, LOTS of stars dotted on (white Tsukineko ink) and we’re ready for thread selection:

(Sorry, forgot to take a picture of the threads for the “planet.”) the quilting patterns were very simple: lots of almost-horizontal lines to enhance the shibori pattern…big pebbling on the moon with both of those threads run through the needle…and simple wandering paths in the night sky to connect each and every star, representing the connections amongst us.

Now, if you’re going to sit and admire the moon, you really ought to have chairs. As usual it was my sweetie who came up with the idea for the best kind: tiny Adirondack chairs :).

Happy moon-gazing! 🌝💫