Maybe I'll be in a Texas quilt book!

 "Forest Fire Spirits" (57 X 51 inches), by Sherrie Spangler, 1997
Hand-painted fabric, feathers, gold thread

This quilt, "Forest Fire Spirits," has been packed away for years. I made it in way back in 1997 when I lived in El Paso, Texas. It was summer in the desert with temps over 100 degrees, forest fires raging elsewhere in the Southwest, and I had heat on my mind, hence the title.

Then last week I got an e-mail totally out of the blue asking if I would send it to the International Quilt Assn. offices to be considered for publication in a book called "Lone Stars III: Texas Quilts Today."
I guess they knew about it because it had been juried into the IQA Festival in Houston -- long ago.


The book will cover Texas quilts made in the last 25 years, and its 2011 release will coincide with the 175th birthday of Texas as a Republic, the IQA Festival's Texas theme show, and the opening of the new Texas Quilt Museum. My fingers are crossed!

Details, above and below, of "Forest Fire Spirits."

I started with yards of white cotton, which I painted with Setacolor fabric paints. After tearing it into strips and arranging it on the quilt batting, I stitched undulating lines with gold thread, catching in feathers and scrunched-up tulle here and there.

 This next picture has nothing to do with the quilt except for the 

pretty purple color.

 Flowers in our back yard.

And the next two pictures have nothing to do with anything else in this post. I just like them.

Grass swirls in the little estuary below our house.

Sea gull at low tide, surrounded by tube worm casings sticking up from the sand and seaweed. I also took this behind our house.

Have a

COLORFUL

DAY!