Traveling Show Submission

I've been busy (moving, for example) & haven't been keeping up with this blog but today I made time ... loved looking at all the show pieces & reading statements ... now I really want to see them all in person & together!

Serendipity

We have all experienced the serendipity of finding something relevant when we were not expecting it. That, in a nutshell, is how this quilt was created.

I began with a technique called “making fabric”. This is the process of selecting and randomly sewing together small scraps. (You can see this in the four quadrants.) Could I use the “made fabric” to frame some free cut rectangles? Yes. Could I join four of them and contain them cohesively? Yes. This exploration, especially the last one in which I chose strong repetitive patterns for the joining strips, was a good start. The strips were “fussy cut” – meaning I cut these parts out of a larger piece of fabric. It was a conscious design decision. It was at this point that I thought this piece might be a good one for this show and I began to pay attention to the required size dimensions. Next I focused on the sunburst. What inspired this idea? The design elements and color in the joining strips simply morphed. For some symmetry but with some variation, I repeated the idea and the colors in the spikes at the bottom. The side borders fabric was chosen because it seemed to expand the piece. The multi-colored pieced header and corner blocks were leftovers from other projects and seemed to fit this one well. The most surprising aspect of this quilt was the binding. At first I couldn’t decide between light/dark and print/solid and so the piece sat for days. Then in a “flash” I knew it needed to be pieced with solids that complemented the borders. My last touch was to hand-stitch in a few places until it felt finished.

I equate the phrase “modern quilting” with pushing your own boundaries … trying something new in every new project … being committed to creating rather than re-creating. I consider my piece in this show “modern” because I made my own design decisions instead of buying a kit or copying a quilt someone else designed. My fabric choices were based on what I had on hand. I did not go out and purchase “x” amounts of a coordinated line of fabric.

What I like most about this quilt is the color and the color-interactions. I think that this piece is a joyful expression of a process that I find fulfilling and I am honored to share it with you.