Mar 15 07
New Quilt Finished and Answers to Some Questions…
Does this quilt look like my usual kind of work? NOT! I used to sew more traditional looking quilts like this one, but haven’t for many years. BUT, I came up with an idea for a quilt experiment and this quilt is the first in my experimental series. The question I am looking at is whether or not one can successfully use contemporary kinds of quilting designs in a traditional looking quilt and still respect the traditional essence of the quilt but at the same time, add a new kind of design interest in the quilted line. Time is very tight for me and I’m eager to play with this question, but I don’t have all that much time to sew, and that’s when I came up with another brilliant idea! I ended up buying some traditional looking quilt blocks at auction and sewed them together and they became the “petri dish” for my experiment! So, the blocks for the quilt above were not sewn by me, but I pieced them together and then quilted it. Now, I want you to look at the close up picture below to see the background quilting design:
This is not a stipple. This is a design that I call the irregular swirl design and that gets to part 2 of this post. I have been getting a lot of emails from people who want to know about this 3rd DVD. The third DVD is called “Fast and Free, Volume II” and it is a series of new designs that are again based on the fast and free concept of design derivation. Below are a series of pictures of just one family of designs that is covered in Volume II. This family is called the “Innies and the Outies.” See if you can figure out why..
Above design is the random swirl. Next:
Above design is the spooning swirls. Next:
Above design is the irregular swirl. Next:
Above design is the irregular angled swirl. Next:
Above design is triangle swirls. Next:
Above design is geometric swirls. Next:
Above design is swirled hearts. Next:
Above design is leaves. Next:
Above design is curvaceous leaves.
Isn’t this an incredible family of designs? What I love about them is their versatility…you can use them in art quilts, contemporary quilts, and traditional quilts with very striking results. Now, if we return to our new traditional quilt that I placed at the beginning of this post, let’s look at another closeup that shows the quilted detail better (bad pic, but it shows what I’m trying to convey):
If you look closely, you’ll see that this background design is the irregular swirl. I have used this extensively in art quilts but here it works very well in a traditional setting…it even almost has the appearance of a group of roses or some type of flower with lots of petals. Stay tuned because I’m finishing up another traditional quilt with another design from the “”innies and outies family and I’ll post it once it’s done!
I enjoy seeing the mixing of traditional and contemporary. An art historian through my education I often look to traditional quilts to inspire my art quilts, I strive to find ways to combine the two ends of the spectrum.