Commissions scare me stupid. Which is why I don’t do them often. They either need to like what you do or they need to tell you what they like. The translation from word to piece is treacherous. However they do tend to change how you think and what you do.

This was a commission for Scott Forsman. They didn’t want the quilt itself. Just the image. And it went onto the bottom of a 1.5 reader in a story called Tadpole to Frog. Don finally found me a copy of it. I never got to see it at the time.

It was to be 8″ by 48″. It had never occurred to me to do a that kind of an elongated piece. I couldn’t image who would buy it, but Scott Foresman had sent it back to me after paying me well to photo it.

I had three ladies fight over it.

It turns out that these elongated quilts fit in places nothing else fits. They go over doors, over bedposts, fireplaces, panorama windows, and all kinds of odd crannies. But they also have a huge impact for a small piece, in terms of square footage because the eye travels through the space of the quilt.

These have become an obsession with me. Japanese art talks about taking the eye on a journey through the space your art creates. It makes a visual path.

Because it’s already elongated and not “balanced” it’s already in motion before you start. How good is that?

Of course I enjoy running these long quilts over the edge. I’m feathered if I’ll cut off a leaf or a rock to make something square. Really!