Made for - I had been asked to do a colorwash presentation and workshop for Columbia's BTQG guild for January, 2005. I started this wall hanging to demonstrate the uses of different types of fabrics in the presentation, so the ladies who had also signed up for the workshop that week-end would know what type of fabrics to bring. I wanted to have more than the bed sized quilt I had made to use for demonstration purposes.

I love doing colorwash. I spent LOTS of time cutting fabrics, and using leftovers from the bed quilt Harvesting Life's Treasures from 2001, just because of the fun of it. I laid the squares out on the backing, and would move them around like puzzle pieces, until I had it the way I wanted them. The center pieces that had a lot of white on them, with a little bit of design, are called "reachies" and they lay between the solid colored squares and the light squares with very little if any designs to make them transition without making an abrupt line. I asked the ladies to bring some of these "reachie" fabrics for the workshop.

I enjoy colorwash, so I made a bed sized peach colored flannel design wall quilting 2” squares on which to lay out my designs, and be able to move the project without losing the design.

I developed a technique for sewing the rows together. I would carefully lay each row, from bottom to top, on a piece of cardboard, so that it wouldn't bend and allow the squares to fall. I would bring this row over to the machine to sew to the last sewn row. At the beginning of each row, I would use a scrap fabric for a leader, so that the first square would not bunch up on the end. You sew the whole row together without cutting the thread. I would then iron each row as it was sewn, before sewing on another row. I would iron the seam the OPPOSITE direction of the square to it's left, so they would nestle together when sewing the rows together in the opposite direction. Because of the size of the iron, if you did all the ironing at the end, your iron would accidentally touch other squares causing you to have to re-iron those squares. Time consuming!

I randomly beaded some dragonflies, some of the flowers, etc. I did not bead everything. Whenever I entered it into a local show, I would include in the description:

" The reposing fairy is contemplating the beauty of the nature around her. As she focuses on these elements of nature, they are magically enhanced and take on a “sparkle” (beading) such as the dragonflies and some of the flowers.  She has not yet spotted the 4 butterflies, 3 owls, 3 birds, 1 snail, 1 beaver, 4 cats, 1 heron, 3 mushroom, 1 fox, and 1 dog.  Can you?"