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).

Exhibition Quilt

I have been working on a quilt today. It is a quilt for our next exhibition. We are all making a 18 x 42 inches quilt on the theme of "Inside Out" to be hung in the entrance room of the exhibition area, to create a cohesive visual focal point.
I have a master plan for my quilt, but having said that, I'm taking it step by step, not to mess things up, so to speak. So far I have made a long panel with attached images. The images are transferred on to fabric from a mono print that was made as part of my design work. Four images slightly off set on an old recycled damask table cloth, quite densely quilted in long free motion parallel'ish lines. I love using the old table cloth that are beyond rescue because of too many stains. I find them in thrift/charity shops or flea markets/car boot sales. They are so soft. Dye beautiful, and I like the thought of re purposing them, giving them a new lease of life. A long side my main piece I've made three small quilts, trial and error pieces to experiment on. After having finished quilting the panel and the three smaller pieces, I took a deep breath, went and got my emulsion/latex paint from the garage. Diluted and slightly coloured the paint and painted the quilted trial pieces lightly..... It looks great. Tomorrow I'll paint the main piece :-)