Early on I saw no disconnect between the functions a quilt could serve as a bedcover and as a work of art. In fact, I saw all quilts as art and still do – and I’ll qualify that a little by adding, there’s good art, and there’s bad art, regardless the medium. The designs communicate graphically whether laying flat over a bed or hanging against a wall. In the latter regard, they could occupy substantial surface area, sometimes as much as nine or ten feet in width or length, they could attract the eye from a far distance, yet they could be folded into a small bundle that fit comfortably under the arm or in a shopping bag. Not so easy to do that if your fabric substrate is eight feet square and stretched over a wooden support.

This 1975 piece, Razzle Dazzle was made purposefully for a bed, hence the lower angled corners, inspired by a similar foot-of-the-bed handling I’d seen in a few historic quilts. It was hand- and machine-pieced, then hand-quilted, with cottons used throughout, though some of the blue squares are cotton blends, and a few are woolens. When I last saw the piece, a long long time ago, I recall being unnerved to find it in use in the collector's son's bedroom, though of course, it was made to fit a bed. So...I figure this likely bit the dust decades ago. In any case, whereabouts unknown.

The sketches of Razzle Dazzle variations were made for my first book, THE QUILTMAKER'S HANDBOOK, and it took me a while to figure out a way to do these in a reasonable amount of time. Initially I was drawing them in ink with a Rapidograph, an instrument widely used back then but likely viewed as an anachronism today. When that got to be too time-consuming, I went to Letraset brand cut & stick-on textures that made the job of filling in each shape a lot faster. Now with computers...well, we all know.

It’s possible that this piece has survived, that it’ll turn up in the outside world again someday, though that’s probably wishful thinking. It could be approximated if not duplicated, but that would be for someone else to do. I vaguely remember, once or twice over the years, workshop or design class students showing me their “interpretations” or adaptations of Razzle Dazzle, and that was always interesting or amusing, if not necessarily flattering. There was in fact only this one original, my embroidered signature in the lower left, and an embroidered title label on the back. Rumpled up on a preteen’s bed, serving out its days.