sonia | About my default quilt icon

For

jesse_the_k - thanks for asking!

(Click for larger image.)

I had a friend I visited every Thanksgiving. She creates beautiful things in every medium she sets her hand to - writing, food, gardening, ceramics, basketry, mosaic, quilting... Her mother had moved near her, and they had a prickly relationship, but her mother loved to sew the quilts she pieced together.

I forget if I traded some of my ceramics for this wall hanging, or if she made it for me simply because I asked. It's been 8 or 9 years now. I chose fabrics from her stash, mostly the purples and blues and greens I prefer, but she insisted on some color variety for accents.

Some time later, this gorgeous completed quilt arrived in the mail, a yard square. (It only looks trapezoidal because the photo is at a bit of an angle.) I got it framed at a do-it-yourself frame shop in Berkeley, where they generously did a lot of the work for me so it was stretched properly. No glass, though - I didn't want to hide the fabric-ness of it.

It hangs in my bodywork office, partly because I enjoy looking at it as I wait for clients, and partly because it's underground, so the colors are protected from fading in the sun.

Back when I was still going stealth with this dreamwidth account, I chose it as an icon because I already had a digital photo of it, and it felt right to represent me, without saying anything specific about me. I had one friend I'd lost touch with recognize the image and write to ask if I was *that* Sonia, which was a lovely side-effect.