Winter Lights
A Season in Poems and Quilts
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This book has been a very long time in the making. The seed of the idea to write a book celebrating the lights of winter came to me when my daughter Sarah shared her experience of her very long, very dark winter in Sweden as an exchange student in 1986-87. While reading holiday stories in the early nineties I was struck by what a good thing it is to have a diversity of winter celebrations in this country. The seed began to grow. Unfortunately, the results of my efforts were too didactic, as is often the case when one starts with a big idea rather than an incident. I tried first a story, and then one long poem, but as one editor said, my "words , while well intentioned, did not ring of emotional truth". I put the idea aside and worked on more successful projects for several years, including PIECES: A YEAR IN POEMS AND QUILTS. As I made the quilted illustrations for PIECES I began to notice quilts which seemed to glow with light. I wondered if I might be able to make such quilts. Then I began to wonder if, instead of one long poem about light in winter, I could write individual poems about the holidays and other lights that glow in the dark time of year. Poems that might be illustrated with glowing quilts. The idea had come to life again. In 2000 the first group of poems I submitted was rejected. As Virginia Duncan said, "You have hit a very high note with PIECES, and your next book should be at least as high if not higher." At that point I was focusing mostly on the holidays and she suggested I expand my thinking to include other lights that we enjoy in the dark season of the year. I agreed, accepted the challenge and went back to writing. A year later, my new collection was accepted, as was WHISTLING, the story written by my friend Elizabeth Partridge. Since my vision for the WHISTLING quilts was much more developed at that point, I chose to do that book first. I finished those quilts in March 2002. WINTER LIGHTS was now my top work priority. I had some ideas in my head of the quilts for many of poems, but it would take a lot of time and experimenting to clarify those ideas and figure out how to construct the quilts. For other poems I was clueless, but trusted that ideas would come. I began working on some of the designs on my computer. To do this meant learning a lot more about how to use PhotoShop. I spent many hours on designs that either I or the editors ended up rejecting. |
| From the book:
During the dark months, we turn to light for comfort and to lift our spirits: a dancing candle flame, a cozy fire, a beaming flashlight. Even natural lights have a special quality in winter: the morning sun glinting on icicles, early sunsets, stars glittering in the cold, moonlight on fresh snowfall. But perhaps most heartwarming of all are the lights we use in winter celebrations. |
| I worked on the designs through April, May and June and at the end of July submitted a dummy with 10 designs and some notes.
In August I spread my fabrics on the floor of my studio and began choosing which I would use for my first two quilts.
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It would be another two years before I finished all fifteen quilts. By then I had spent hundreds of hours in front of the computer screen, made several dozen trips to fabric shops, ripped out and resewn more seams than I want to remember, and used almost eleven and half miles of thread. Would I do it again? Well...probably, and I'm certainly glad I did it once! |
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Clicking on the quilt names or images below will take you to pages which tell about the design and construction of each quilt. |
All images and text © Anna Grossnickle Hines 2005
| The Solstice Quilt The solstice has long been celebrated as a time of rebirth and renewal, often with great bonfires. This is the first quilt I started, but not the first I finished. It is a twisted log cabin design made with 650 triangular blocks, each of which is 1 3/8 inches on a side and made with thirteen smaller triangles. |
| The Lucia Quilt Santa Lucia wearing her crown of candles brings the light to begin the winter holidays on December 13 in Scandinavian countries. The quilt is made using a bargello technique. |
| The Nian Quilt Nian means year in Chinese. Nian is also the name of a great monster said to come on the eve of the new year. Fireworks, bright lights and the color red frighten him away. This quilt is another made with the bargello technique. |
| The Christmas Tree Quilt Decorated evergreen trees go back to times long before Christmas, but have become an important part of the Christmas tradition. The happy quilt is made with strip piecing. This quilt was accepted and shown at the Road to California Quilt Show, January 2006. |
| The Aurora Borealis Quilt The movement of the Northern Lights is suggested by using the bargello technique. |
| The Protest Quilt The young sledder is not ready for the day to end. This quilt is done in appliqué, using one Mickey Lawler's Skydyes™ fabrics for the sunset sky. |
| The Moonlight Quilt Again I've used a Skydyes™ fabric in this appliquéd quilt in which the moon paints shadows on the snow. |
| The Lights Out Quilt Who has not at one time or another enjoyed the secret pleasure of reading with a flashlight under the covers? This quilt is a variation of the twisted log cabin using a hexagon. |
| The Hanukkah Quilt The menorah, Star of David and a driedl are created with strip piecing . About Hanukkah |
| The Kwanzaa Quilt The key to making this quilt about Kwanzaa was finding the African fabrics. The quilt is pieced in wide and narrow strips with the figures appliquéd on top. |
| The Holiday Magic Quilt Paper-pieced windows and wide strip piecing in bright colors on black and intense blues give the feel of a street sparkling with holiday lights. |
| The Candle Quilt The glow from a single candle flickers and makes a bright spot in the darkness. This quilt is done with twisted triangles and parallelograms . |
| The Fireplace Quilt Bright flames dance on glowing red logs. This quilt is paired in the book with the candle and also made with twisted triangles and parallelograms. This quilt was accepted and shown at the Road to California Quilt Show, January 2006. |
| The Farolito Quilt Farolitos are paper lanterns used in the southwestern United States to light the way for Joseph and Mary on Christmas Eve. I created my path of farolitos with strip piecing. This quilt was accepted and shown at the Road to California Quilt Show, January 2006. |
| The Icicle Quilt This poem and it's quilt was inspired by the icicles that had formed along the eaves overnight, glistening as they began to melt in the morning sunlight. The quilt is done with the same triangle block as the Solstice quilt and has the same number of pieces. The special challenge here was to make the light change from dark to sunlight. |
| The End Threads were everywhere as I worked on these quilts. Finding them on himself after giving me a hug, my husband said they were "contagious". It do think that, along with the snippets of bright fabric, they make very attractive trash. |
