In my previous blog post about the prompt International, I mentioned that I learned of our prompt while traveling from New Zealand back to Anchorage, Alaska.

At the time I was sitting in the first row of First Class on Alaska Airlines. (Being a frequent flyer has its perks.) I was on the second to last leg of my journey home—a flight from San Fransisco to Seattle–and I was staring at this “wall” in a classic long journey travel stupor.

Here was my thought sequence—

International = Travel = Students from Around the World = Airplanes = This Wall in Front of Me = Quilt.

The quilt is about all of these things.

It is very much about my students in New Zealand and Australia. Many of them had taken bit making to entirely new levels. I was very interested to see if I could build on what they had done.

I have thought about the geometric potential of this “wall” in first class before. It is very quilt like. I created a sketch based on all of these ideas as well as the components I always use—color, pattern, repetition, and the units used to compose traditional quilt blocks.
 

I pulled a palette of twelve colors.
 

I am not sure why I started with the outer edge, but I did.

In hindsight, I think it was a mistake. AT least for THAT quilt it was.

I was disappointed with the result, so I started thinking about other things I could do with the units. 

I decided I liked the blue version best. I often tell my students that once you are on the design wall you must be always be thinking about construction. As in, how in the heck could I piece this? 

I modified and moved forward. 

The stars/spinners became airplanes in my mind.
 

Vibrating, tessellating, flying across my design wall.

Come Fly with Me by Maria Shell

International Prompt 2-3

40″ x 40”

Vibrating, tessellating, flying across my design wall.