Two strips of paper featuring basic building shapes inspired my composition. They were created with Pro-Chem Textile Paints in combination with masking tape resists and painters’ texturing tools. I have been using these tools in my work for a long time and don’t always find a place for every image or piece of fabric right away. I pulled them from my stash along with some other paper and fabric prints I had made at the same time in similar colorways.
Next, I cut shapes from the two fabrics, repeating the doorways in the printed papers. Then I realized I could give the illusion of another building by appliquéing these small fabric pieces as a sort of positive to the empty doorways.
Oddly enough, my biggest challenge seemed to be finding a background fabric/color. After auditioning a variety of blues, I decided upon one that gave the impression of a night sky.
Now that I had a background and was satisfied with the main composition, I moved small yellow squares in a few ways before settling on a final layout.
I hand embroidered around all of the fabrics in an outline stitch, as well as a running stitch around the yellow squares to give them a sense of windows—architectural elements.
The quilting design is a combination of horizontal and vertical lines except for the line of appliquéd doorways. Rather than simply stitch around them, I reinforced the idea that these doorways were a row of buildings by stitching around their lines and curves.
While I generally face my art quilts, this one seemed to call for a binding to frame the scene.
