I have lived in New England, specifically Vermont and New York, for a good amount of my life. My biggest regret living in the desert is not seeing Autumn each year. A number of years ago I had a chance to put some work in a small gallery in Jericho, Vermont – the town my husband’s family settled in the 1600s. The gallery is also the original home of Snowflake Bentley, the man who photographed snowflakes and proved no two snowflakes are alike. I wanted to do something that would honor autumn in New England.

We marbled a piece of polysatin in autumn colors. Now there are some purists in quilting and marbling who insist 1) everything has to be cotton, and 2) you can’t marble polyester. Well, I’m a great one for breaking the rules…which is interesting, because I was such a linear, rule-follower growing up. But not where my art is concerned, evidently. We have discovered since we started marbling that polys take the marbling and paints extremely well, and almost all our art pieces are done on some type of polyester. The detail is exceptional, and the colors are consistently bright.

Once we had the great colors, then it was…hmmm, how to show this off? This would be my third piece in my Gaia series, and I knew I wanted to keep the weaving aspect. But I didn’t want a square or rectangle of strips. So I looked to weave just the top part and have the lengthwise strips hang down in points.

The draft looked like it would work, but the copper thread was not cooperating. This was before I really knew much about threads and machine tension and adjustments…so I did a lot of ripping out to try and get the stitched somewhat even. The other problem was the serging. Again, I wanted to use some decorative threads, but the machine wasn’t cooperating. And…I wanted to have points at the end of my strips, and I wasn’t sure how to manage that.

Gaia 3: Autumn

Now the visual effect was what I wanted. I cut the length-wise strips so the pattern would not be broken. This is a traditinal marbled pattern, the reverse of the peacock/bouquet design – which we call “bat wings,” because that’s what it reminds us of. The vertical strips are attached until about 6 inches from the bottom, because I wanted the effect of leaves/branches in the wind. This was actually the second piece I added beads to, and they worked out quite well.

The serging is rough. I have since learned all kinds of tricks to smooth out what I want for a decorative edge, and the piece I am working on now reflects all that I have learned. This is one where I wish I had better pictures – and more of them. If you visit the website, you can enlarge the pics there for a better view. The piece sold about a year later to a quilting buddy. I still miss it, as it is so New England autumn.

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