Shortcuts

When I moved into our current neighbourhood 12 years ago, I was surprised to see a lot of open spaces around the houses. There are hardly any fences that would separate the lots and outline boundaries. Only swimming pools have to be fenced in for safety reasons. I really like this kind of neighbourhood where owners share green spaces and you can walk through other peoples’ backyards. Even the deer are roaming between the houses and wander around everywhere.

We have a high school nearby, so before and after school you can see students crossing through the yards to take shortcuts. But not only them, everyone else also can take these shortcuts. I wanted to show this concept of open space and no fences so I decided to go with a whole cloth quilt. I didn’t want any seams and hard lines that could represent borders. I painted a length of cloth in various shades, which ended up pretty colourful.

The quilt is a fairly accurate map of our neighbourhood. The streets and houses are appliqued on using a non-woven material. The background is quilted in an undulating pattern that reminds me of map contour lines. I then hand stitched on the yellow lines that represent the shortcuts between streets.