When I learned the prompt for this round was road, I knew exactly what I wanted do. I wanted to piece the road that leads to here—the Wrangell St. Elias National Park where McCarthy, Alaska is located..

We have a cute little cabin here.

And I love to spend my summers stitching away in my Plein Aire studio.

 I have been here since the beginning of July working away every day on these three quilts.

 My Cloth in Common quilts always start with the size defined in black fabric strips on my design wall.

 And then a sketch.

 I finished the road and the mountains.

As the deadline for this prompt grew closer, I knew that I needed to stop working on the other two quilts and focus, focus, focus on the “road” ahead.

I allotted three entire days to piece the sky. Surely that is enough time.

My first sky was all wrong.

And so was my second one.

In the meantime son #1 and his friend show up. He is twenty and here to make some money doing grunt labor. I was really surprised by how much he threw off my rhythum. “Mom, where is the sun screen, charger, bug dope, swimming towel, and so on.” I also cannot believe how much they eat. Time began to slip away.

Even the bees were working against me.

 Today, I woke up knowing that I would be in the studio until this piece was done.

I selected a third sky palette.

I changed the piecework from short rows to curves. I was not sure how it was going to work, but I forged ahead anyway.

Slowly, I could see how I could piece the curves into the mountains. It worked!

MXY Road

40’’ width x 30’’ Height