Nordic Snowflake

This was a first for me; a non-symmetrical piece with a huge amount of empty space on one side. This is the work of designer Gudrun Erla and you probably saw the pattern in a recent quilt magazine. Okay, so now what?

I Google'd (is that even correct?!!) Nordic designs and came up with a lot of sweater patterns, including the snowflake that appears here. That gave me the idea to do linework in the wide open space, in rows, just like a Nordic sweater pattern. I generally shy away from lots of ruler work. I thought it was slow and tiresome. But, I enjoyed every minute of it! I mean, after the design is planned, there's not much thought to it. Just lay down the ruler and Go! So, it went a lot faster than I thought it would.

A couple of designs came direct from Zentangle. (I really must write a post on Zentangle one of these days! Just Google it!) To give you an idea of scale, the two-row checkerboard pattern is based on a one inch grid. Using a wool batting really rounds out the places left unstitched. So much texture!

Then I decided all that straight line stuff had to be softened with some swirly stuff, and some pebbling, too. I absolutely loved working on this one! And, I won't be afraid of linework any more!!!

“You have brains in your head,

you have feet in your shoes,

you can steer yourself any direction you choose.”

                                                             Dr. Seuss