Casting a Light

Casting a Light, the second quilt in my Through Ellyn's Eyes series, came together fast and furiously. In fact, from start to finish it was only one day. whew.

First my inspiration. I am often inspired by buildings, especially older buildings, and structures like bridges. Apparently I also have a thing for lampposts, as I have taken quite a few photos of them in different cities over the years. These two in London:

Recently, my friend Lisa posted a photo she took of a lamppost in France, which got me thinking about them again. Then on retreat last week, as I was sitting on a bench in downtown Granbury, TX, I noticed some lampposts there on the square (did I take a photo? NO! I did not. but hey, I took the time to notice them). Early one morning on retreat, I pulled out my sketchbook and drew a quick draft of a quilt. I decided right then and there that it would be the second quilt in my series. 

Interesting note, as far as noticing things..... Hubby and I have been watching the Hulu docuseries about Paul McCartney. One thing that I observed about Paul is his intentional presence.... the way he notices little things in his life and they often become big things in his music. I highly recommend watching it. Anyways.....

This quilt uses  Kona Black, Corn Yellow, Chartreuse, and Glacier. It was totally improv pieced from my sketch and finishes at 16" x 20".

Last week, Sarah surprised me by mailing me a copy of Jacquie Gering's book, Walk 2.0. I had shared with her how much I loved the first book and that I wanted to develop my walking foot skills as I continued this work. I promptly dove in and found this awesome divided diamonds pattern that I thought would work well on my lamppost quilt. I really enjoyed doing it and have found that my walking foot quilting continues to improve!

I bound the quilt in capri and added a few signature hand stitched x's at the bottom.

 I really love the graphic nature of this quilt and plan to explore that element more as I continue.  

and then there were two!