Blogger's Quilt Festival and Revolution

Amy of Amy's Creative Side is efficiently and generously hosting the Blogger's Quilt Festival once again and there is an art quilt category. So here's my choice for this spring, a piece that is dear to my heart and one that I would like to share with a wider audience.

Revolution 2011: Order and Disorder (41.5" x 46", 105cm x 117cm, machine pieced, appliquéd and quilted; hand appliquéd) commemorates the liberation of Tripoli, Libya and the end of an ugly dictatorship. 

The outer squares (top and right) represent an order that disintigrates into disorder, yet there is a flow, there is hope. However, the black borders represent rupture and the possibility of chaos upon whose edge Libya now  teeters.

The warm colors of the central panel are stitched with "extreme" needle turn appliqué, which I worked on over the course of ten years, while the cool colors provide a contrast with machine appliqué that allows the raw edges to show. The frayed edges suggest an unraveling of society, of stability, of things we take for granted.

(My blog articles about extreme needle turn appliqué may be seen here, here, and here.)

At the Blogger's Quilt Festival, you may nominate a favorite for the Viewer's Choice Award until May 24th.  So I invite you to stop by Amy's, admire some excellent work, and, nominate a piece by entering the link of your favorite and your email address here. Voting for Viewer's Choice begins May 24th and ends May 30th.