Talking quilt

My quilt for EBHQ's biannual show, Voices in Cloth, has proceeded in jerks and stops. The top was on my design wall for a month before I reworked it. Then another month as I wondered how to quilt it. I posted about it here and here and here. Still undecided about that, I went ahead and sandwiched and basted it. Then it spoke to me.

From it's inception, it had a landscape orientation. I've turned it and looked again. Nope, landscape. But with the basting stitches, it spoke loud and clear: turn me! Even my quilt group heard it. Now it has a portrait orientation. Here it is on the right with only basting stitches.

The same thing happened with my first quilt, Straight Talk. I am amazed by the power of stitch lines.

Now it looks like a modernist building. An abstracted façade of with walls, overhangs, recesses and reveals. So along that theme I've added a 2x4 grid in brown then a 4x8 grid in teal. I do like my quilt lines to show but both grids are subtle. Well, they are background. Here it is on the left with brown and teal quilting lines. 

Next will be a heavy white thread that would stand out. The white reflects the exterior color common to modernist buildings. To pay homage to Richard Neutra (pronounced NOI-tra), a California Modernist architect, I am researching his buildings to cull design elements and sketch the quilt lines.

It's an architectural tradition to name a building after the client. Well, he can't be anyone's client anymore. Nevertheless I've named this quilt Neutra House.