October - Mill Valley
2009

14" X 20"

Friends of ours have a beautiful Victorian home perched on a hillside among the redwoods in Mill Valley. For years they have been gracious enough to lend us a little apartment downstairs opening on to their garden when we head north for extended stays during the San Francisco Fall Antiques Show.

This little quilt which was made for them as a thank you for years of hospitality and shows the view from the doorway of the apartment across the patio to the live oaks that dot the valley side of the mountain. On our last stay there in October, 2009 I photographed and sketched in preparation for a workshop with Marcia Stein entitled "Picture This" in which we were asked to bring our own photos to be translated into a quilt.

With Marcia's guidance I simplified the scene which was then fused onto a gradated fabric sky using hand dyes, batiks and hand marbled cottons. The centerpiece of the garden - the bronze armillary sphere in the pond -was printed from my photograph and heightened with paint and watercolor pencils.

The scene was thread painted in silks and cottons and then very closely machine quilted in silk thread.

Private Collection