Saturday, December 6, 2008

Let It Be

In Let it Be we see a figure holding the planet Earth in his hand.

Despite the cloudiness of the night sky, beams of light break through.

In his famous song, Let It Be, Paul McCartney wrote

And when the night is cloudy
There is still a light that shines on me
.



Quilt No. 61
June 2008
McCartney wrote this song after a dream about his mother, Mary, who had died many years previously. In the dream, she soothed his tensions, advising him, “It will be alright, just let it be."
Often, during our darkest moments, someone will step in to shine a light and show us which way to go.

When we have learned to accept that there are limitations and situations beyond our control, we will have learned to let it be.

Is the figure divine? Is it human or alien? It’s up to the observer to decide.

What a world we could have, if we could learn to let it be.

Quilting Notes
I wanted to use some sheer material in this quilt as part of the beams of light. This proved to be exceptionally difficult, as various types of this fabric shredded along the raw edges when I tried to sew them on. Gluing them simply made a mess. The raw edges could not be turned under, as they would show. Eventually I found a fabric that could withstand stitching along the edge with invisible (nylon) thread. A different sheer fabric was layered over the star fabric to give a dreamy quality to the light beams. The central figure was put on and removed a number of times, as the tight curves and the thick material (two layers of cotton to hide any seam allowances that were turned under) made appliqué very challenging. The cloud and the figure were both painted with Setacolor Shimmer Pearl prior to being added to the quilt. When assembled, the quilt was much too dark. Additional Shimmer Pearl was painted on the finished quilt to give a much lighter look.

1 comment:

  1. I love that you explain how you came up with your cool ideas, and how you went about creating them. This one gives me goosebumps.

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