To boldly go...

Having started to move in a paler direction, as always, one thing led to another, and my ideas have taken a monumental leap in completely the opposite direction! Oh well... ya gotta go with it!

I've been musing over an idea for a brand new, slow cloth, art quilt. A serpentine one! (I'll explain in more detail later). But for now, this is where that's taking me. I've had students all week (last night I cooked for 8 people!) and so I've been playing with this wee square meanwhile. Check ('scuz the pun) it out!















Very much inspired by Jude Hill and her amazing patchwork skills. I've been practising some smaller stitches. My stitching is always... crude... but I kind of like it that way. I've always been abit of a perfectionist, so crude stitches are a definite letting go for me :} And that has to be a good thing... since in the end, we have to let go of it all!















I might have mentioned already, that everynight, before bed, we play checkers - or "draughts", as we Brit's call it. Nilo, (who, by the way, is just 7 years old), is virtually unbeatable! He even plays against our university students, and he usually beats them, including Brazillians, Columbians, Chileans, Germans, and Costa Ricans! We got a new board at Christmastime and this is kind of where my idea originated. So I started with the idea of the checkered board...















... and I thought about adding some counters... and they immediately became eyes!
















I thought, what if I combine these two?... circles and squares... just like the board.















But then I thought about doing this, reverse applique...















... I really enjoy the surprise element of this technique ("The only people who say ta-da are magicians and idiots", according to Nurse Jackie, the TV show... I saw a trailer for it the other night, and wondered is it witty, or not?)















And this morning I finished this first nine-patch square. And thought, I wonder how it would look as a repeat pattern? Let's find out!

The wonders of modern technology, eh?... (yes, I photoshopped the image!)



















WOW! Virtual slow cloth! That's bold! I might just do this in real time! Just look at all those squares and circles (even the eye motifs form a ring or a cross!) And it has that tribal quality that crops up in my cloth from time to time. This one has a definite African feel to it. Not a bad start really.