Northern Lights (in progress)

People have been asking me what I'm currently working on, so I thought I'd give you a sneak peak at The Northern Lights wall hanging.

This was originally supposed to be the centerpiece of a larger quilt, but it kept growing, and growing. It took on a life of it's own. I decided to make it a wall-hanging unto itself, and start over for the centerpiece.

The turtle at the top is from an indigo adire dyed fabric that I picked up in Nigeria in 1993. The menfolk tend to use tin stencils to push starch through to the blank fabric before it's dipped into the indigo dye vats. The starch resists the dye (the lighter areas) of the turtle. I bought the turtle fabric for my friend Diane, and made a vest for her back then. I still have pieces left, and thought the at the turtle looked like one of those time-elapsed photographs of a starry sky, revolving around the north star ... I couldn't resist adding it here.

I've been experimenting with different ways to make the pine trees. I may put up a tutorial in coming weeks on that topic ...

The northern lights fabric is a shiny satin that didn't photograph very well. I still have to finish working on the trees in the foreground. Then comes the thread-painting, quilting and finishing. Not to mention figuring out how to build some kind of a frame so it hangs properly.

For Conversations-in-Cloth this month, we're supposed to present "significant progress on a personal challenge piece." This is one of my challenges.