This is Deb Cashatt, back with my quilt based on the prompt “Reflection.” To me the abstract looked like a rainy night in an almost empty city. My mind saw a figure amid neon lights reflecting on wet pavement and windows.  So I decided the quilting should make something a bit more representational out of this abstract. I quilted building angles and windows. Then I used glow-in-the-dark thread to machine stitch around the “sign” and “guy carrying a backpack.” Then I got out my metallic thread and hand quilted the rest. I thought I would like the gray look of the image I printed on fabric. But I didn’t.  So I got out a bunch of metallic paints and painted on some color. I was much happier. Still, this is one of those projects where the end product didn’t live up to its promise. This is the first of my abstracts that I didn’t print myself and I didn’t print on silk. I think the darks would have been better if they had been darker, and the sheen of silk would have been better for the reflections. I hemmed and hawed for so long that I ended up cutting off a large part of the right side so I could finish the quilt on time. 

Here are some of the iterations of the abstract image:

Here’s what I printed:

Here is a detail of the “sign” on the quilt:

I’m not sure it’s finished. I might do more stitching and painting. Or I might cut it up and make some potholders.

If you want to read about my thought process on the identity prompt, visit my earlier blog post: https://www.clothincommon.com/single-post/2019/08/27/Reflection-of-What

Title: Rainy Night in the City

Dimensions: 40″ x 26″

Materials: Cotton fabric and batting, metallic thread, glow-in-the-dark thread, perle cotton

Techniques: Digitally created image printed on cotton.  Hand and machine stitched.