Blue Ridge Parkway's 75th Anniversary

The Blue Ridge Parkway will be celebrating its 75th Anniversay very soon (I had no idea about how many years it had been in existance!) and , as part of its celebration, the Ashville Guild has been asked to make a quilt that represents our portion of the Parkway. Various members of the Guild have volunteered to create original blocks that will contain various aspects of the parkway environment.

I will be making one of the blocks and it will contain a fox, an owl and the mountain ash (with berries). I was assigned the size of 16" wide and 28" high--which made me take one huge gulp when I began to realize just what those measurements would entail. We were all given the same light blue batik background to use as the base for our block--the rest is up to our own discretion.

I took my basic idea to my art group, Focus, last week and they very generously gave me some good imput--which actually reinforced the idea I had originally started with and then veered away from.

So, here is my red fox and you can see him in relation to the rest of the blue "canvas." The bottom will come up to his leg area. I worked several days on him and was really pretty happy with the way he turned out since this was my first real effort at this type of realism. If you click to enlarge the image, you can get a better idea of the detail.

And next, I have added a grassy area with a stone wall behind. And, oh yes, there is a LOT of space still to fill. I will now be adding the mountain ash branches, stems and berries (I have seen these in their full glory a couple of times up at the Pisgah Inn and they really do make a spectacular showing). And I know how I'm going to place the owl. My only big decision left is whether or not to add more background landscaping (more mountainous terrain). Nothing is attached too firmly at this point so I can move things around if I need to.

So far, this has been a lot of fun to do--once I came up with the idea. And it will be rewarding to see it in its final resting place as part of whole--joining other quilters in a celebration of our nation's highway successes--a place in which we can enjoy the journey without worrying about the destination.