An Inner Centre Journal Quilt

The February theme on the Sketchbook Challenge site is: Windows. I started thinking about it and had the idea for a design in my head when the  10" square quilt itself took charge and told me how it wanted to be made. It's one of the miracles of the creative process that things come out of your hands seemingly without your control or will. It's not the case in everything I make. Some of my work is very thought out (maybe too much so!) but in other cases I start with something and some unknown force takes over and leads me along the way it wants me to go. That's what happened in this case.

My first and only intended step was finding a fabric that looked like bricks. I searched among my stack of gelli plate printed fabrics and found one that looked promising. It even had a lighter area at the bottom which could become (I thought!) a flower garden. The search for the fabric took place in my indoors painting studio (otherwise known as the spare room) and while rummaging I came across a stencil I had been using while playing with the gelli plate. It was the Church Windows one from Stencilgirl Products.

Hang on a minute. What would happen if I used white acrylic paint through that stencil onto that brick like looking background. No thinking, just doing. I loved what I saw when I removed the stencil. Now I had lines I could hand quilt using white thread. But my piece wanted more such as a bit of a focal point.

More searching, this time through my stash, and I found a transparent ribbon (from a box of chocolates) featuring sparkling trees. Sadly I only had two trees and two is not a good number for compositional purposes. Not to worry, I could make a third tree out of gold lame.

Then I discovered some tin ivy which was couched around the side of one of the windows and further adorned with gold and green metallic rub-on.

Clearly this was a winter's night and stars would be shining. They were provided courtesy of another ribbon.
And a quick browse through a vintage book brought me the text: "There is an outer world, and there is an inner centre".  Oh yes!!!

I've tried to give you a bit of an insight into the process that happened when this quilt came to be but the truth is that I don't have any answers how this evolves. I simply know it does when somehow I am in that creative frame of mind (call it the zone if you want to use a cliché!). It's an experience I wish on everyone! It comes from my Inner Centre so what else could the quilt be called?!