What I'm working on now

I wanted to do something with those luscious wools I cooked up at the OCAC natural dyes workshop before they acquired that aura of "too special to cut into." The soft yellows, greens and browns reminded me of a photo I clipped from the paper several months ago and stuck in my "inspirations" file. It's an aerial view of fields separated into quadrants, really just a simple four-patch, but very textural. So I started with that idea and then began improvising, using a combination of piecing and reverse applique. The blacky-gray and dark green strips are, respectively, hand-dyed by moi and hand-dye-look commercial cottons.

This is a much more muted palette than I typically use. I thought at first it needed a touch of lime green (doesn't everything?) to zing it up. But what it really wanted was some of the lovely soft brazilwood red wool I'd dyed at the workshop.

It still needs quilting to bring it to life. I'm thinking of doing some seed stitching with variegated perle cotton (I have a skein in colors that would coordinate perfectly). Regular machine quilting would probably be swallowed up in the loft of the wool, though it might add some interesting surface texture.

I'm not sure it still reminds me of fields; something about it also suggests media -- four TV screens or computer monitors, with a border of slides, photo negatives or perhaps movie film -- though I would've chosen entirely different colors if I were doing a "media" quilt. Oh well; it'll probably tell me what it wants to be during the quilting.