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It was the late 80s and we were living in southwestern Ohio and making regular treks to Upper Michigan to visit family. The Yoop is a winter kind of place--they joke about the area's two seasons: winter and poor skiing. We usually made a Christmas-time trip and took the kids and ourselves skiing.

Our favorite spot was Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park, where plentiful lake effect snow made artificial snowmaking unnecessary. You rode up the chair lift, disembarked, turned around and there before you lay Lake Superior in all its chilly majesty. So beautiful.

And inspirational.

This quilt was called Skiing in the Porkies and was meant to capture that Up North ski feeling in a stylized way. I wanted to depict ski trails among the trees, and most especially the ski tracks, which always looked like quilting designs to me. This was hand-quilted, and I had the idea to add silver-lined beads, for snowy sparkle.

The border was meant to suggest Lake Superior nearby.


And I always liked the cute ski fabric I found for the backing. There may still be a bit of that in the stash.


I still like this quilt, although I can see that at the time I was extending only the most tentative toe into art quilting. I guess I never have been one for the emphatic, throw-caution-to-the-winds artistic statement. If I made this quilt now, it would be bolder and way more visually interesting. I'd use a variety of whites for the snow and the trees would be looser and more free-form. And the border: I'd definitely do a wider and more intricate color-varied blue border. After all, Lake Superior is much bigger than a puny double row of half square triangles!