Rorschach van Gogh Mashup
October 2014

This quilt was an interesting undertaking. To create the pattern, I started by sketching the butterfly on graph paper. Once I was happy with the outline of the butterfly, I chose the side that I liked best, folded the paper in half, and held it up to a window. I then adjusted the outline on the other half so that I had a somewhat perfect mirror image from left to right of the center fold.

The fabrics used in the butterfly were from leftover scraps of grey and black fabrics, while the white background was mostly new fabric. The butterfly is not appliquéd onto the white background fabric – it has been patchworked together. Many of the 3″x3″ quilt squares had to be custom made, since the overall shape of the butterfly is organic, to mimic an ink blot design. To finish the quilt, I hand stitched around the outline of the butterfly.

As I worked on the quilt, I knew I wanted to reference Rorschach in the name, but it wasn’t until I bought the fleece for the backing (shown in lower right where I folded the corner back) that I came up with the name Rorschach van Gogh Mashup.

I enjoy Fox’s program So You Think You Can Dance, and was inspired by the 2014 season’s performance of a Phillip Chbeeb’s hip hop routine that was inspired by Rorschach and danced by Zack & All-Star Fik-Shun.

I donated this quilt to the County of Ventura, Children & Family Services, via the Children’s Services Auxiliary of Ventura County, in October 2014.