For this quilt and others involving flames I was intrigued by the twisted log cabin patterns. The shapes and movement suggest dancing and flickering flames, particularly when done in bright colors on a black background. I bought Barbara Kaempfer's book, LOG CABIN WITH A TWIST, published by American Quilter's Society, and studied the quilts and techniques used to create them. Three quilts in the book that particularly appealed to me when considering my flame quilts are "Windmills" and "Waves", both made by Käthy Gubler, of Switzerland, and "Feuer" (Fire) by Esther Kronenberg, also from Switzerland.

People often remarked at the small size of the quilts I had done for PIECES, but after seeing the work of George Siciliano at the Lancaster quilt show I knew it was possible to work much smaller! I wanted to be able to work that small to get as much detail and movement as possible in my quilts for WINTER LIGHTS. I spoke with George, who often wins top prizes for his miniatures, and he told me he first designs on the computer, then begins to sew. I decided I needed to learn to make better use of my computer.

Once I had this grid I used the "fill" tool in PhotoShop to put color in the spaces. While I worked I kept a white background behind my line layer so I could see the spaces to "fill". To check how I was doing I would "hide" this white layer and look at the colored spaces against a black background.

Of course, I often wanted to make changes and try other possibilities. I found I could do this by making a new copy of my single hexagon without any color, fill it with whatever colors I wanted then "drag" it into my design and put it wherever I wanted. I could do this dozens of times and end up with dozens of layers which I could then move around, and "hide" or show with a simple mouse click, trying different combinations forever!

Each length of each side on these triangles is 1 3/8 inches.

I sewed two columns of triangles together--the nice bright ones, but they looked terrible. I had unwisely used black thread which darkened the light colors too much.

I ripped the rows apart, salvaged the triangles I could and started over. This time I used light thread to piece the blocks and basted each seam before sewing the blocks together.

It was slow tedious work for sure, and I was eager to some of the other quilts started. I needed to see faster progress! In mid-October, with just five rows done, I started my Lucia quilt.

Then I worked on the Christmas Tree quilt and Nian, and Aurora Borealis, sewing Solstice triangles in between, a few days at a time. I kept a diary during these months, attempting to track my hours and by January 26 I noted that I had spent approximately 188 hours to do 11 rows and 7 triangles.

In March I had finished half of Solstice, plus the four quilts named above and was working on Protest. I took them all with me on a trip to New York. The crew at Greenwillow was happy to see them.

In late June I finally finished Solstice, as well as Protest, Artist and Lights Out. Eight quilts done and seven to go.

I should probably not confess this, but I will. I stupidly got a tiny spot of chocolate on one of the yellow stars in that little cluster in the center. And even more stupidly, I tried to clean it off and, of course, the colors ran. By the time I finished I had involved three rows that I had to take apart and repair.

The back of this quilt is almost as interesting as the front.