Find, Search, Discover

 My first inclination was to use leaves in some way to signify the theme. In the fall, while driving home from town, I am constantly looking up at the leaves and admiring the changing colors from shades of green to golden yellows, intense reds and coppery oranges. 

My husband suggested clouds as an appropriate theme.  When I spoke about the challenge with my daughter, she said Mother, you were a librarian, you have to use the term the way it was used in your job. After thinking about these options for a while, I decided my daughter was right. 

My first step was to create a list of words related to looking up books or doing research in a library or doing a search on the web. After compiling the list, I typed the words into Tagxedo (http://www.tagxedo.com) and had fun playing with different shapes and fonts. After saving a number of word cloud possibilities, I took them into Photoshop Elements and changed font colors, backgrounds, sizes of the clouds, erased some words and moved others until I had five or six word clouds that I was pleased with.

The last step before construction could take place was to print the words on fabric. Ironing fabric onto freezer paper works well if the bond between the fabric and the freezer paper is very tight.

  

The fabric was then cut into strips of varying widths, was sewn together, cut apart and was sewn together again. After playing with various arrangements piecing and rearranging began. A simple grid pattern was machine quilted and luckily, I found some fabric in my stash which was suitable for a binding.

Additional details can be found in my blog.