"Early on photo shoot mornings, in anticipation, I awaken to imagine wispy visions of birds that I hope to get with my photography."

I love nature and I love photographing nature, especially birds. When I drift off to sleep, I see whispery imagery of birds. ..feel anticipation of getting that special vision through my photography..... and feel joy imaging creating and immortalizing that vision in fabric. On a photography trip to Florida, I got these various poses of the Snowy egret and Great White Heron that I envisioned recreating in fabric. Whether sitting, walking, flying, the birds are amazing to see. Capturing each moment though photographs and then fabric for the world to see is rewarding. This quilt allowed me to design these wispy, waivery dreamlike images in a fanciful setting.

I started this quilt by making the background and then quilting it in a workshop in 2008 with Juanita Yaeger. She was going to show us how to add blocks to the background. I made the egret blocks, but did not care for the way she attached them to go outside the background. They were too stiff and didn't roll up well, and left creases. So, I did nothing with it for 10 years. One of my friends saw the bird blocks and liked them. She said I should do something with them. So, I decided to put them together my way, by appliquéing.

I wanted to make them look like "visions" in the dark of the morning. So I got fabric that looked like early morning. I quilted the blocks before I appliqued them on, because the background was already quilted.

I tried lots of different fabrics and different placements, before I finally figured out what I wanted to do.

The quilt size does not allow it to be shown in most quilt shows that require 30”, but it did get juried into the one show that I entered it.

Shows

"Visions", juried into The Great Wisconsin Quilt Show, Madison Wisconsin, Sept.8-10, 2022.