To See A Quilt Grow

I have been quilting making traditional quilts for about +20 years. The last +10years I have made art quilts and I have experimented high and low with lots and lots of techniques. I'm often combining fabric, papers, found objects... what ever fits, the project. This type of work is obviously not meant to be washed, nor handled in a way, one would a quilt made as a throw, lap quilt or bed spread.

I still make traditional quilts and I'm nearly always working on one along side all my other projects. I love the process of figuring out a pattern, cutting up the fabric and then sewing it all together again. To see a quilt grow is a lovely process. I usually like the more straight forward quilt patterns. When stitching it all together on the machine, it is blissfully mindless. Quite meditative in its own way. The tactile feeling of the fabric is lovely. Seeing the quilt top change expression when being quilted always amazes me. It is as if the quilt top starts to find its own identity. I love hand quilting, but now mainly do free motion machine quilting. From a time perspective it is not realistic for me to hand quilt large quilt and I would end up with too many of UFO's (unfinished objects).