Scherzo

Theme of music was the last challenge for my Fifteen by Fifteen group. It took me a while to come up with the idea. I didn’t want to use musical instruments or musical notes in my quilt. This time inspiration came from my deep Lithuanian background, from the artist, that every Lithuanian knows and admires.

Lithuanian artist and composer Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis (1875-1911), was a unique figure in the history of European arts and has left a profound imprint on Lithuanian culture. Many of his paintings were based on intricate musical compositional techniques, and inspiration for my piece came from his Sonata of the Summer. Scherzo. Tempera on paper, 1908.

Borrowed from Italian, scherzo (joke, play) is a swift-moving piece of music performed in a playful manner.

In this quilt I wanted a viewer to hear the melody of the wind as the swallows dance across the sky. When the melody reaches it’s crescendo, candle flames flicker in delight, trees and grasses bend and move with joy. It is summer, it is time to play!

I used my own hand dyed cotton fabrics following colors of the painting. The shibori discharged piece of fabric used for the right side of the sky was laying around for a long time. I thought I would never find any good use for it. It worked well in this quilt. It happens to me all the time: fabrics that I consider having no use find their place in my quilts.

Pieces were fused using Soft Fuse, machine appliqued and machine pieced where it was possible. Machine quilted. Adding spirals in quilting helped to express movement. Some hand stitching added for more texture.

And here are so close up images: