Making our own color in the Northwest

Parking lot of the Chambers Bay golf course near Tacoma, WA.

It's been hard to find anything colorful to blog about lately because the Northwest has been doing what it does best: rain. However, the people who live here generally get outside anyway and walk, garden, drink coffee ... So here is a photo of my little walking group after we hiked around the Chambers Bay trail. Everything was pretty gray except for us.

I think I'd rather be in the photo below, which we took a few years ago in Silver City, New Mexico. (I think I took it; my daughter thinks she took it. We both have the same eye for color and design.) Ah, New Mexico, there's rarely a shortage of color there.

A sidewalk in Silver City, New Mexico, where we vacationed a few years ago.

The light in the desert is luscious, delicious,
clear and dazzling.
I could drink in the desert light.

I've lived in the Southwest desert twice, once in my 20s and again in my 40s. It's hands down my favorite source of inspiration for art. Equally astounding as the daytime color is the brightness of the stars at night because of the lack of light pollution and cloud cover. I have yet to capture that in a quilt.

The quilt below is titled "New Mexico Light II"

Detail and full view of "New Mexico Light II"

I started with white cotton fabric, painted it with Setacolor transparent fabric paints (with a little pearlescent mixed in), cut it up, sewed it back together, and layered it over batting and a black backing fabric. I painted the edges of the batting, then quilted it all together with gold thread in sweeping lines to mimic the desert wind on a clear warm morning.