When Catherine gave us the prompt lines, I have to admit I was stumped for a while. I already use a lot of lines in my work, so I wasn’t sure what to do. I think I was thinking about another project when I thought of lines on printed circuit boards (PCBs). These lines are called traces. Traces on PCBs connect all the different things on a PCB. I have tons of PCBs and photos of PCBs.

They have pretty interesting designs if you look at them closely. I think that some of them look like aerial views of miniature cities.

Several years ago, I decided to make my own PCB design to print on fabric. I didn’t know what I was going to do with it, but my mom wanted some to make my tech-y nephew a shirt.

Here’s a closeup of the design:

After Pixeladies (I’m one half of the Pixeladies) stopped printing on fabric, I decided I’d better have some of this design printed in case I ever wanted to do something with it.  I’m sure glad I did. When I thought of making something to do with traces for this project, I just pulled out the fabric and pieces some yellow traces into my traces fabric. Here’s what I started with:

I decided I didn’t want to just make a bunch of yellow lines, so I pulled out my trusty Art Gallery Solids and chose a few other colors.

My process is to put things up on the design wall, move them around, and add more things to the composition until I’m happy. So, part of the process is improvisational, and part is meticulously planned. I even had some parts left over from my last quilt (Climate Change) that I could add to this piece. Can you pick them out?

Here’s what I ended up with.

And here are a couple of closeups:

Traces
Deb Cashatt
Dimensions: 39″ h x 40″ w
Material: Artist designed fabric and commercial fabric
Technique: Machine pieced, machine quilted