maples--day 33

I love the maples on the fence row--carefully planted in an even row. The rhythm of life and maple syrup. Defining the fields and the road. Each maple different but also the same.

Aren't they like the regular pieces of a quilt one after the other until it becomes greater than the parts?

maples--quilt--45x17--ann brauer

if you don't like the weather--day 15

Who me? Complain about the weather? What good will that do?

Well, it is a way of making chit chat at the deli, isn't it? Which was just what I was doing yesterday when I told my friend who was running the cash register that maybe we had had enough rain for this week. This is June after all. I could use some nice sunny skies for my little tomatoes and basil that are shivering in their new home.

But every day is lovely, she replied. Very sweetly of course because she is after all a sweet person. It is the perfect day to snuggle inside and make a quilt.

That is true. And I can remember last year when I anxiously hung wash out hoping to tempt the rain gods and goddesses to no avail.

So today I am posting my quilt--colors of the rain--to celebrate the rich complex colors of grey days. What do you think? How do you celebrate rainy days.

colors of the rain--quilt--45x45"--Ann Brauer--photo by John Polak

high class worries--day 14

Sometimes I work with a customer and together it seems we push the design until it becomes more than I thought it might when I started. That happened with my triptych "notes on twilight". Don't you love the purple grasses with the gold circles dancing through it. Isn't the quilt free and graceful but also restful and calm? One of those pieces that I could study and always find something new?

This quilt does have a presence. It is large--the center piece is 40x40 inches and the two smaller ones are each 20x40 inches. I have it hanging on the back wall of my studio and love looking at it as I pass by.

But alas--as I told you--this was a custom order and the customer wants it. Of course this is what I wanted to happen but still I will miss it. Such a hole on my wall. I remind myself, paraphrasing Alice B Toklas, if I didn't need to replace the spot on my wall, I would not have room to hang another quilt. (Well actually she said if her uncle had not died, someone else might not have been born, but you get the idea.)

Or as a friend of mine would say, "That's high class worries."

notes on twilight--quilt--Ann Brauer 2017--photo by John Polak

detail--notes on twilight--Ann Brauer 2017--photo by John Polak

always always rainbows--day 10

Last night first there was hail. Ugh. I feared for my peas and tender young flowers. I feared for my car and our solar panels. It was bigger than a quarter and made such a racket as it hit the windows. Soon the storm passed and it started to clear. I went outside and looked but no, there was no rainbow. Sigh.

Then sitting inside as the sun came out my DH called me. Yes, finally a rainbow. Beautiful and full across the evening sky. The perfect finish to the day.

This quilt was large. One of the starts of a new technique where I tried to simplify the work by creating color studies. Can you tell that I like the work of Morris Louis?

dreaming of rainbows--quilt--about 96x100 in--Ann Brauer--photo by John Polak

 

 

detail of dreaming of rainbows--quilt--Ann Brauer--photo by John Polak