Late in 2023 my younger daughter, Valdís Klara, wanted her own bird quilt. She chose the Swan since that is her favourite bird.
For this quilt, I decided to experiment with a new approach for the background, choosing dark blue fabrics with flower patterns. I usually opt for muted or tone-on-tone backgrounds, so I’m quite pleased with how this turned out. What do you think?
I also learned an important lesson with this quilt: although the swan is predominantly white, I used mostly grey fabrics, ranging from light to dark stone grey.
This quilt is a striking example of how this technique can create an illusion. At first glance, you see only the swan, but upon closer inspection, the squares don’t quite align perfectly. The human eye fills in the gaps, making the squares come together to form a cohesive image. This is one of the aspects of this technique that I find most captivating.
I took this photograph one Sunday afternoon at Tjörnin, downtown Reykjavik, while my daughters and I were feeding the birds at the pond.
