Farmlands Day 7: Walls

At first you don't notice them: the stones under your feet are just there, and you walk over them or around them, trip occasionally, or stub your toe. Then you plant a garden or plow a field, and the stones that you once ignored become a source of either wonder or frustration. Connecticut has more stones, rocks, and boulders than anywhere I have ever lived. It also has the most beautiful stone walls that border many fields, paddocks, roads, and yards in towns small and large. Most of the walls have been made out of necessity. It is not possible to plow a field or plant a lawn in this state without first moving tons and tons of stone. When I expanded my very small garden a few years ago, I realized that my first crop was rocks, and the term "rock farmer" made lots of sense.

Farmlands has stone walls, too. I have chosen the colors of granite, slate, marble, quartz and amethyst to piece together and make an asymmetrical grid which separates the fields of green and yellow. Hopefully the viewers of this quilt will like the order that a stone wall brings to a field of green as much as I do.