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The first of the quilts based upon Ivan Zelenin’s drawing is just 14″ square.  I began with a silk painting of the drawing, using the white of the serti technique to form the lines between the logs of the buildings.    It is machine quilted with white thread to follow the lines of the drawing.

The Zelenin drawing leaves many questions.  I wonder how he chose the frame of the drawing.   He clearly felt that the relationship between the cabins was more significant than showing the base of the tower, for example.  And, then, there is the question of color.  A line drawing simply invites color experiments.  That is what I have done here.

During the spring snowstorms here on the Palmer Divide, I read about life in Siberia.    I found a drawing by Ivan Zelenin from 1679 of a monastery built as a group of small log cabins.  This drawing has tremendous power, even after all these years.   I am making a series of quilts using the drawing.  Log cabins are an American patchwork quilting design, using elements of light and dark colors.

These quilts will venture off the grid into the fabulous perspective of the Zelenin drawing.  The photo captures a small part of the Russian Log Cabin quilt, with my oldest cupola-shaped pincushion in the foreground.