One of these days I will actually have some quilt stuff to share with you. Just haven't felt much like playing with fabric lately. But I have sketched. Afterall, I have those wonderful markers to play with.

I wanted to share with you the evolution of a design today.

We live rather close to the Rocky Mountains, I can see them if I'm in the right part of the city and the weather is right. And they are less than an hour's drive away. Sadly, though, we only get there every couple of months. But they are there, taunting us with majesty and the possibilities of fun (I used to mountain bike and until recently, ski).

On a trip to Banff last year, for work of all things, I snapped a couple of photos. The colours and details on that trip were very inspiring in the face of a boring work trip. In the 9 months since, ideas and colour and shape percolated though my head. That trip may have also started my fascination with grey and the accumulation of grey fabrics in my stash!

The Rocky Mountains are young mountains, formed when shifting continental plates pushed the layers and layers of sedimentary rock up. As your drive through them you see, literally, folds and thrusts of rock. You can see layers, where millions and millions of years ago there was once water flowing, depositing the silt to create the rock.

Up close, you can see the shards of shale, the moss growing, the bits of life that emerge from a rocky landscape. From a distance you are awed and made to feel miniscule in the grandeur. Up close it is a slow fascination with life.

So those ideas bubbled around and I finally sketched them out on our recent road trip. Strong diagonals, layers, loads of grey and that little bit of orange. To be honest, I don't know when I'll ever get around to fabric with this, or if I ever will. But the concept evolves.