“The Coastal Quilters Guild challenged members to create a piece 28” x 31” incorporating a particular grid pattern (the black areas of my work) on the theme “Doorways.”

I was inspired by the colorful doors I saw on two trips to Spain. My doorway is red, because it is my favorite color and by coincidence (if there is such a thing), every home I have lived in has had a red front door, including my current home and the home I plan to retire to. A red front door speaks to me of the life and vitality behind the door. I consider it a friendly, hospitable, beckoning color. 

I created this piece in a 48-hour creative fever. Working within the grid, sometimes skewing those lines, I challenged myself to design a unique way to fill each space. I rearranged the pieces multiple times, cutting some up and redistributing them. I used the same section-by-section approach with the quilting (stitching through the layers) finishing work.

This piece reflects the warm and creative energy that lives behind my red front door and I hope viewers sense an invitation to come inside and join me beyond the doorway.”

–Elaine Rottman

I gift most of my quilts to extended family members. Aunt Elaine makes every niece or nephew a wedding quilt and then makes the couple’s firstborn child a baby quilt from the wedding quilt’s scraps. I also make quilts for friends and I participate in many group-made quilts donated to charities. I have organized quilt auctions to support Hope’s trips to the orphanage in South Africa. I even make a few for my own family and our home.

George Scialabba wrote in Harvard Magazine (1984): “Perhaps imagination is only intelligence having fun.” Quilting is my playground. Every step of the process is a creative decision. Pattern, design, color, material, critical review and adjustments, making do when running out of a particular fabric, when to stop, how to finish—the creative process holds my interest and elevates quiltmaking to textile art, not mere production.