5x5

So that pile of squares (second photo down) became this pile of squares.

25 carrés, chacun d'une couleur différente et matelassé avec l'une de 25 différentes couleurs de fil. I spent quite a lot of time reorganising them indecisively because my thing is the way colours bounce off each other and of course the combination possibilities are countless with 25 different-coloured squares (purple and jade or jade and blue, turquoise and pink or gold and pink...). In the end I asked my daughter to arrange them and I stuck to her design. She gets to feel proud and happy and I get to save some time.

Finalement c'est ma fille qui a trouvé la position des carrés. Moi je passais trop de temps à les arranger et à les réarranger car je n'arrivais pas à décider quelles associations de couleur me plaisaient le plus.This is my Elmer cushion cover and it has been a long time coming. I say that because sometime in the nineties I started painting a small wooden trunk in Elmer squares and it didn't work out at all (hello purple dots trunk) so now I am wondering whether this is one of those ideas that I somehow need to process creatively and that, until I do, will keep coming back in different forms. My work often feels to me to be instinctive and spontaneous but if I send out little probes into my subconscious I can almost sense the presence of future projects in embryotic form, slowly gathering input from all around and growing, growing until one day they will pop out, all in a rush, seeming spontaneous but actually with years and years of definition behind them. Gosh. Makes it all sound more than a cushion cover.

Je pense que ce projet fermente en moi depuis les années 90. Et j'en ai plein d'autres idées comme ça qui marinent tout doucement, baignées par ma sous-conscience et qui vont surgir d'un coup inattendues mais pourtant familières.
Just to sum up... each of the twenty five squares on this cushion cover is a different colour and, even more excitingly (for me), each has been quilted with a different coloured cotton thread - usually matching quite precisely. Hurrah for my enormous, inexplicable and yet quite essential (to me), collection of thread!

Heureusement que je collectionne le fil de coton. (Je n'ai aucune collection en réalité, juste des addictions).