"Here comes the sun!"

 It is my turn today to be featured as the week's supplyer of the SAQA Europe and Middle East's group picture on facebook and Instagram. 

I had been scheduled for this date for a long time, and for almost that whole time I had thought I would be posting the picture of my quilt that is in the Forced to Flee exhibit, currently traveling with SAQA (and which will next be shown at Bedford Gallery @ the Lesher Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek, California: February 26 - June 19, 2022). But on the past Monday, when I joined the SAQA regional zoom meeting after not having been able to for a couple of times, and they were talking about music in quilts, how music affects us in our quilting, the importance of music for our quilting, I realized that I had a rather musical quilt in the backdrop. It has relatively recently come home from traveling with an exhibition organized by France Patchwork, and I realized that it would be a perfect candidate for the group picture. So I changed my mind, and because I hadn't sent anything to Birgit Schüller yet, it was easy. Then I realized that I had not even posted anything about this quilt on the blog either, although it is part of my series text messages (which currently gives me a headache because I have lost count of how many quilts I have made, but that is another story). This must have happened because I made it in a very brief period of time, just before the deadline. Then it was accepted quickly, gone right away, and I had not even had time to get a proper photo. 

So here is a little bit of introduction to the quilt. It got started by coincicdence. I saw France Patchwork's challenge fabric at Ste. Marie-aux-Mines: a piece of linen, with a good amount of yellow. Any kind of yellow gets me hooked, and this was very fine linen. But when I asked whether I could buy a piece Catherine Bonte just gave it to me, between EQA representatives, I guess, and said "but you do have to enter!" Title of the challenge: Do Ré Mi Lin. Part of the musical scale, with a slur into fabric, should be easy. Plenty of time, the winter passes, spring rolls around, and here I am, haven't even started on the piece. But suddenly it all came together. I had this cut out sun lying around, 

 

which came from some other piece I was making, and definitely did not want it to go to waste. Sun always goes with yellow, I have this thing with light, I love music, and when you talk about sun and music you just have to think about the Beatles' song "Here comes the sun" (composed by George Harrison), wouldn't you agree? I know other poems and lyrics on the topic of the sun, one of my absolute favorite songs is a Swedish folk song about a sunset on Kajsa's bank on the lake, 

 

a few lines from Ingeborg Bachmann, something Spanish, 

 

and a French chancon. A couple of Afghanistan embroideries from the Guldusi project went in as well,

 

and it all just came together as text messages 20.

Can't believe I didn't write about this one - it was such a happy making, so easy and flow like. If all quilt making was like this, and the sun were out ...