D is for Design

….and Disclaimer and Daunting!

This week’s blog “D is for Design” comes with a huge disclaimer…. I certainly don’t consider myself a quilt designer and found this to be a hugely daunting task.  I have had such writer’s block and a hard time getting going on this.

When talking or thinking about quilt design, there is just so much to think about and so many wonderful designers, and so many ideas out there that I just got overwhelmed and had to take a break.   My breaks usually looked like me picking up a bit of English Paper Piecing I’m working on for my “Little Miss April Quilt” designed by Margaret Sampson George,  then I’d start thinking about the designs of the fabric I was using and realized, “AIYEE, there’s even more to this that I need to think about!!”  Back to the armchair, threading the needle…. Slowly stitching…breathing….sigh.  See what I’m talking about???

Well, I finally had to face my fear of writing about this topic, and get down to business.  I just didn’t know where to start even thinking about design in a coherent and comprehensive fashion.  I Googled and read and googled and read and googled and read.  I flipped through quilting books and books and learned and learned and learned…..

I came across a website The Quilt Show that had a series of blog posts about quilt design. It was very comprehensive… almost overwhelming… but a thorough place to start.   The authors note that the “elements of design include line, shape, form, texture, space, colour, and value,” and offer three tutorials, increasing in complexity, on each of these and noting the aim of design is to incorporate most or all of these elements.  Each tutorial has a short explanation of what that element is, and then some practice exercises.  I’ve pulled the infographics from each lesson and posted them below—just to give a hint as to what they discuss.

Line:

The tutorials online are fascinating, and even include how line evokes different feelings. Some examples include:

Vertical Lines as strength, power and dignity.  This beautiful quilt, “Canopy” by Barbara Confer captures the majesty of forest trees with strong, vertical lines.

Horizontal Lines as calm and relaxed, stable or constant.  How beautifully settling is “Daybreak” by Lubbesmeyer.

Shape & Form: 

The tutorials on shape and form are quite fascinating. Among many items, they focus on shapes and forms that are geometric (human-made) and organic (occurring in nature).  One of the examples they highlight is Gloria Loughman’s ‘Kimberly Mystique‘ (click link to preview this stunning example). This stunning piece uses diamonds (geometric) to create a shimmering sky and organic forms for the boab trees.  She also uses value to create three-dimensional effects of the trees.  Her website is definitely worth a look as she has a number of magnificent creations that highlight the juxtaposition of geometric and organic shapes.  One more quick peek…. “Grass Trees” … I’m just so enamored with the geometric background and the organic foreground!!!

Texture:

There are so many different ways to add texture to a quilt.  I love how the quilting process adds texture to quilts. The impact that densely quilted areas have versus less densely quilted areas is so intriguing.  It is also really fascinating to see how different hand vs machine quilting has on a piece.  Texture can also be added by using a variety of threads—I love using Pearle 8 or 12 threads.  Then, of course, there is use of different types of textiles to create texture. I love how Wendy Williams uses combinations of cottons, linens, felt and embroidery threads to bring so much interest and texture into her work.  Her Seagull Cushion, featured below, uses different coloured felts and embroidery stitches to make the feathers ruffle and the grit of the beach sand come to life.

Lisa Mattock’s slow stitching also incorporates a variety of fabrics, embroidery and lace into her work to create stunning works.  Just looking at her array of photos on her website gallery, you are just steeped in texture with the various fabrics, the overlays, the stitching…. Ooooohhhhhh just so divine.

Space :

The tutorials on space are just fascinating and focus on perspective taking.  This was a great refresher on what I learned in art classes (way back when!), and includes some really advanced techniques and thinking about how to create spatial dimensions in quilt design.   The highlight quilt for me in this series was another quilt by Gloria Loughman, “Rose Seidler House”.   When we first moved to Australia, we became interested in the architect, Harry Seidler.  We learned that the house he designed for his mother, Rose, was preserved and available for tours.  Off we went.  This quilt brought back all those memories of our first year here in our new home, Australia.

Colour:

Colour, colour, colour, colour.  Ahhhh. There is no way I can even tackle this one in this space.  However, I found one of the most helpful infographics and explanations that I have come across in this tutorial!

How great is this!?!?!.

Ok… a synopsis is in order…

A HUE is the big Kahuna… The most vibrant and head of the colour family.  They are “exciting, powerful and love to the extrovert”  but can be overwhelming if used exclusively.

To soften a hue, add white.  Tints are “delicate, springlike, clean, and youthful”

Adding black give you shade and darkens the color, making it moody, dark, nighttime, and so on.

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At the end of the day, in writing this, I am so humbled by how much goes into making and designing the really great quilts and feel like I am just at the beginning of a wonderful, rewarding, and creative journey that is steeped in constantly learning more and more about this wonderful craft and the many, many women who comprise its ranks.  I am also super grateful for the opportunity to write this blog as it gives me the impetus to stretch my learning with each edition!

As quilters, we have so many opportunities to jump into design and develop each of these elements at our own pace.   We can start with kits or blocks of the month where our skill building is primarily around the sewing and following a design.  However, once we go down the path of selecting a pattern, then our own fabrics (HOW MUCH FUN IS THAT???), we are already dipping our toes into the realm of design.  When you take classes with our teachers, each one will lead you down a path, exploring aspects of each of these elements.

I have been intrigued with collage quilts for some time. They can be just magical and amazing works of art.  I remember how much fun it was to do collages during art classes when I was in primary school. Ripping up colourful magazines and gluing them back together to make beautiful images that can be completely new and unrelated to the images that made them.

While there are heaps and heaps (and heaps!) of quilters out there doing simply magnificent work,  I’m going to focus on a few of my favourites: Jenny Bowker, Susan Carlson, Laura Heine and Christine Lethan.   Each of them brings different gifts to the quilting community.

Jenny Bowker is Australia’s premier collage quilter and was honoured in 2018, receiving the Order of Australia for services to Australia-Middle East cultural relations and for her role in preserving traditional crafts.   She also won Best in Show last year at the Sydney Quilt and Craft Show!

Her art quilts are beautiful reflections of the people, places, culture, and her experiences in the Middle East and beyond.   Many of her quilts embody the intersection of traditional patchwork piecing, applique, and collage techniques – bringing multiple dimensions to her work.

I think her portraits are arrestingly beautiful.  The one above was of Madgy Badrmany, a Bedouin guide in the White Dessert and friend of Jenny Bowkers’ and her family while they lived in Egypt. She describes the inspiration for this quilt as a sandstorm that had blown up while they were on a camping trip.  Her use of diamonds to portray the blowing sand and sky sits in such beautiful juxtaposition above the organic shapes of the rocks, sand and figure.

Her series, “Earth, Air and a Memory of Water” are landscape quilts that encapsulate a trip across the Sahara.  She describes each piece as having, from the top down, the sky, a charcoal drawing of the desert below reflecting the colours of the day they drove across it, a grid of crosses, and the earth they walked on and the things they found on it.

When I first saw the images, I was intrigued by the crosses.  Again, a more traditional quilting element combined with more organic/artistic elements.  Her description relates the crosses to the maps they followed along the way, I assume marked with meridians of longitude and parallels of latitude.  She reflects that they represented the way that they ‘continually compared what we saw to what we knew—contextualizing what we saw to fit in a western construct.”

This quilt, using kaleidoscope blocks, is just mesmerizing.   I love the way that  her use of fabrics and blocks frames the central image of the rocks and makes the surrounding earth and atmosphere shimmer. I highly recommend having a browse through her website and blog.

Susan Carlson is simply amazing.  When I learned that she would be teaching at our own AQC, I rushed to the site (in December) only to find registration was already full! RATS! She has produced some of the most stunning animal collage quilts as part of her “Specimens” series.  The first one of hers that I ever saw was the MAGNIFICENT “Crocodylus Smylus”.

This quilt is an homage to Australia’s saltwater crocodile.  Susan Carlson writes that she was “awed and inspired by the shear size” of this amazing animal that averages 20 feet (6 meters) and is the world’s largest living reptile.   She even nicknamed it, Stevie, after the late Australian wildlife personality, Steve Irwin.

The size of the quilt equals the grandeur of the animal…. It is 21 feet 6 inches (6.55 meters) long and 70 inches (1.77 meters) tall!!  To put this in perspective… that is longer than the long wall in the large classroom at CQW.

In 2016, she had an exhibit “Specimens” at the International Quilt Festival in Houston.  She wrote the following text as an introduction to the catalog that was created for the show (and available on her website link above):

With these quilts I hope to help the viewer see all creatures- great and small- with fresh eyes. Unlike those of a scientist, my specimens are not ‘lifelike.” A pink rhino, a polka dotted dodo, a much larger-than-life-size golden toad: the liberties I take, the choices I make are intended to provoke a response. Typically, I hope to invoke a sense of wonder. I could have made my saltwater crocodile any size I wanted. It would have been much easier, trust me, to make it smaller. But I chose to make it twenty feet long because that is what is truly awesome about this species. The size of the quilt is the point.

In some ways, my images are simple. The ­compositions are basic, simple profiles displaying as much of the animal as possible, often mimicking the posed figures in museum cases. In other ways my images are complex. Seen up close, the sheer number of pieces of fabric used makes for a density of color and texture. That, too, is part of the point. Each of these creatures is easily recognizable. Because we think we know them, our familiarity may lead us to dismiss them too easily. It’s only when we look closer that we understand how unique each is and how irreplaceable.

However, political or ­social or environmental statements are not the main point of my quilts, or let’s say that the statements are of the most obvious kind: our world and its inhabitants are at risk. I make quilts because I love fabric for its color and texture. I make quilts of animals because I’m an unabashed animal lover. That’s it, really. If my “Specimens” can speak to others at a tactile level and encourage them to look at animals at a deeper level (make people more aware of these animals), then that’s a good thing, I think. I think that’s enough.

—Susan Carlson

Here are some of the quilts in the exhibit.

One of the things that I really love about Susan Carlson is her generosity in sharing her processes on her blog.  I really like the one where she goes through the process of creating “Fructos” her fruit bat.  She sources the inspiration of Italian Giuseppe Arcmboldo who created portraits made up of images of fruits and vegetables in the 16^th Century.

Following his inspiration, “Fructos” was created from fruit and vegetable patterned novelty fabrics… down to its banana toes and lime for an eyeliner!

I could spend hours on her website as she has really lovely and insightful descriptions of her processes.  Following the details of the process she described for making one of her sons, I tried my hand at making a collage of a Salmon (my son’s name, Brayden, derives from a Gaelic legend of the Salmon of Wisdom). I think it turned out pretty well!! She also offers an online masterclass! 

Laura Heine is another collage quilter that has an amazing repertoire of patterns and kits available for purchase.   While Susan Carlson is more about expanding your own ideas more freely, Laura Heine offers patterns and instructions so that quilters can explore their creativity in a more bounded manner to create an image that she has developed.

Her images are incredibly varied, ranging from sea creatures like a seahorse or octopus, to farmyard animals, and even “old blue” the old time pickup in the field.

She even has a “how to” video on her website that includes some of the fundamentals.  One of the most useful things I learned through her site was to use Karen Kay Buckley Scissors when cutting fabric for collage quilts. These little beauties have micro serrated blades that prevent the fabric from fraying.  These are really lovely, especially when cutting little bits for some of the designs.  They were prefect for cutting out my little mermaid for the Octopus Garden quilt I did.

If you really like these quilts and want some hand holding to get you started, I just met the fabulous Veronica Appleyard at the Craft Alive Show in Penrith a few weeks ago.   She is offering two day workshops to work on three of Leone Heine’s designs at Fernadale or Campbelltown this year. The workshops are featuring these designs:

It has been so inspiring to write this week’s blog…. I’m SOOOO tempted to start a new collage project…. But I still have these UFOs I need to finish now that my photo is on Annette’s Wall of Commitment (Shame????).