Appliqué Quilt finish

Applique Quilt finish 46 x 59 inches all cotton.

This is the next new thing, appliqué pieces on top of an improvisational patchwork quilt top. I was inspired by several quilts and people to try this. Applique is hand sewing technique which has been used for centuries to decorate, using small shapes of colored fabric applied on top of a bigger surface. I used a simple big background improvisation and laid rounded squares on top with a layer of cotton batting in between to add extra puff to the attached applique pieces.

In this image you see the rounded squares and cotton batting cut and applied with long quilting pins to the background hanging on my design wall. I really enjoyed selecting fabrics and arranging my design before sitting down to baste stitch them in place firmly enough to finish sewing them down. The idea of making these rounded squares came from a hash tag on Instagram last year #squircles a word I had never seen but it seemed to be originating from the work of designer Carolyn Friedlander. She who advances the concept of "slow sewing" aka hand sewing and enjoying the meditation that ensues as you work stitch by stitch around a shape. 

I don't know who came up with the word and I am not sure I want to endorse it but square-circles mashed into "squircles" is kind of fun to say and it does make describing this sort of shape easy. Wonder if Websters will pick that up? I had hoped to join in a recent workshop on applique quilting with Carolyn my Washington DC Modern Quilt Guild held but I missed the entry time and had to settle for a great trunk show and talk given afterwards. It was fun because I got to see her and her quilts in person and compare my work to what I had seen on Instagram in her photos of these quilts. I was very surprised to discover I made most of my squircles many times larger than hers. She showed us the Aerial Grove quilt that really got me thinking I should try this, seen below. It's a series of squircles in almost a rainbow of colors which were selected very thoughtfully from a collection of 303 Kona Solids then sewn on to long blocks. Her squircles are about two to three inches in diameter. 

 The whole aerial grove quilt has these appliqued long blocks sewn together then surrounded by a low value patchwork improvisational composition to create a field around the rows of bold colored shapes. See a smaller version below.

Here in this last quilt we see a big collection of her shapes that are hard to name but very beautiful together as a series. She uses a very thickly machine quilted back ground to contrast her hand applique pieces. She gave us a tip I had to try when I got home about packing quilts. She folds them on the bias rather than squared to reduce the chance of making permanent crease marks in the quilt. The fabric is less likely to hold a crease when folded and stored on the bias and each time you unfold it you can refold in new places on the whole quilt to reduce fiber wear and tear.

I chose to hand tie the center of each of my applique pieces to secure the extra layer of batting inside the shapes. I was concerned that when washing that they might shift or even curl up inside and come out of the dryer with balls of batting wadded up. On the really big ones I added four ties. I big or long stitch quilted around each applique squircle and used a winding line to quilt the background. 

 These three images blown up by clicking on them will show you the overall quilting lines that wind in three rows back and forth over the surface. All hand quilted. I used a shirt striping from Denyse Schmidt, that I had been hoarding, for the binding. It was to bring all those darker sections together with the and frame the whole design with a little more patterning. I selected solid, striped, checked, tartan and doted fabrics for a more masculine quilt. All of the improvisation background and binding were sewn on my 1935 Singer #221 Featherweight portable sewing machine.

 It was a fun project and I learned a lot along the way about applique patches as with any new technique I feel like I could do it better next time. I would select smaller pieces to apply and do them on smaller blocks before I sew them together as a finished top. That will require a more planning than I did for this spur of the moment project. Since this is a nap sized quilt and I worked the applique pieces around the edges it went pretty well but I would have been easier to do this in sections, even perhaps in long strips like Carolyn did on her Aerial Grove quilt top.

Stacking pieces is another applique technique I would like to attempt for a future project. Shapes on top of shapes seems like it would be fun. In this quilt I decided to keep it simple and thought this form of applique piece, the rounded square or the squared off circle, brought to mind the shaped color field paintings and sculptures of a modern artist I admire, who recently died, Ellsworth Kelly. If you don't know Ellsworth Kelly's work yet, I suggest you look him up and try to find one in a museum because they are so wonderful in their simplicity of form and powerful colors! What an inspiration his work is for this modern quilter. From a recent exhibition at National Gallery of Art his printed shapes floating on the walls. He has other works in the free museums of Washington, DC

Quilter's Tour at NGA

Today I met about 6 quilters and 5 children to take a tour of the modern wing of National Gallery of Art. The group was larger than just us quilters lead by a volunteer who knew a lot about the building and various works of art. Meeting up like this was a lot of fun and I wish I had lead my own tour, but hindsight is 20/20. We did a lot of floor changing up and down which was a bit challenging for the kids on wheels but it was all a lot of fun in the final analysis because we shared an art experience. Lunch in the sculpture garden was busy but we expected crowds this time of year. I didn't pose the group for a formal portrait. I just tried to get snapshots. Further down I have some images of the art I liked some of it wasn't on view today due to a leak down in the lower level that closed up several of the rooms.

Part of the gang on our tour... embedded quilters see any you know?

Guard son and Amy

Jamie and three daughters and Amy in the back with the guard and her son 

Paul Reed American, born 1919
COHERENCE 1966
acrylic on raw canvas

Henri Matisse Paper cutouts

The Ellsworth Kelly paper works exhibition is a temporary installation of works done with colored paper pulps editions in small sets of 10 or less for each design in 1977. Still looks very modern and interesting for quilting inspiration I believe. His painted canvas shapes are always so amazing to me and usually one or two colors on an exquisitely shaped canvas.

Ellsworth Kelly paper works

Ellsworth Kelly paper works

Ellsworth Kelly paper works

Ellsworth Kelly paper works

Alexander Calder small mobiles and sculptures

Alexander Calder huge mobile

Untitled Mark Rothko 

This great warm colored Rothko painting was switched out for a  blue and black one today. I knew something had changed! I took this picture last time I toured the modern collection thinking it would be a good place to go hunting for inspirations with my quilting friends.

Alexander Calder mobile and shadow

Cy Tombley 

Joan Mitchell
reminds me of a crazy quilt with so many triangles and interlocking strokes

Richard Pousette-Dart
American 1916-1992
White garden, sky 1951
graphite and oil on linen

Joseph Albers 

Andy Warhol self portrait x 4

QING Dynasty
1736/1795
Vase
Porcelain with overglase famille rose enamels 

This Qing Dynasty vase from the Asian ceramics in the west wing was one thing I found that looks very modern and would make a very nice quilt design using various star forms common to quilters. So I don't think we always need to look directly to modern art to find ideas for modern quilting. I believe everything we do is modern we can't help it being so but inspirations can come from any time or era. Updating past artist works in our own versions is one of the oldest tricks in the artists handbook. Ideas that are old always can be updated to find a new way that is informed by current culture and understanding.

improvisation modern or traditional

design wall with improvisational blocks using green with white next to scrappy multi-colored blocks 

I have been working for almost a month on improvisational quilt blocks. They began with my green and white work from 2011 that is continued to be very stark and fun to play with on my design wall.  I got this far on the green/white and began a new series using scraps from the generous donations given at the March 2013 DC Modern Quilt Guild meeting mixed with my own scraps.

The colors I brought home were gray, brown and orange tangerine and marigold mostly and that is where I went with my improvisational block building once I realized it was making me feel energized to work with this mix more than others that evolved from the scrap heap.  Then I began wondering how big my project would grow and how to lay it out once I had a number of blocks assembled. 

Edge to edge or stacked on a gray background field were the two choices I considered. 

 

layout with a gray field background 

The feed back I have so far is to go with the all over orange theme and leave the gray ground out. Honestly it was the way I wanted to go in the beginning once I realized I had a new orange project that was looking good but I wondered if I could make enough blocks to create a whole quilt of these improvisational blocks. I would need some more fabrics to do one large enough for a bed. Then I wondered if that is really what I wanted to make because after seeing the Gee's Bend quilters finished quilts I knew I wanted to hand quilt this project and big means lots of work quilting. Wouldn't a smaller quilt be just as good?

I have been enjoying the play and the collection added one next to the other not worrying too much about size or relationships to the connecting blocks. This was meant to be very free and fun. To assemble them I need to be more thoughtful how the sizes line up and the edge designs and colors will come together. Also I am giving some thought to the balance of the entire collection of blocks. As I have worked on this I have had a few tiny scraps and I made two almost six inch square blocks to consider scale but over all the blocks have been getting bigger and the pieces wider and longer.

Mini block 6x7"

Miniature block 6x6"

The big blocks are adding in some of the new fabrics including a gray paisley, a brown printed black burlap design and the speckled gray "concrete" backing and a neutral tea stained muslin.

Do you have a preference or comment on how the final quilt or quilts might look best? I am looking forward to this week's DC Modern Quilters Guild meeting in Arlington where we are going to have another scrap swap this time with lots of quilter's bringing in scraps. We also have an orphan block quilt project that is seeking donations for a charity quilt and our quilter's name tag reveal. I also expect we will be talking about our plans to join the international organization of guilds called Modern Quilt Guild. I read the various definitions of "modern quilting" that the guild has used and began thinking that I need to look more at Modern art. I am a traditional kind of guy and look to Albrecht Dürer the 15th century German artist more than more recent works of art because I can relate to them better. Skill drawing and painting I can aspire to more than the mental feats of Modern art's conceptual creations. I understand these modern movements pretty well and admire and delight in the fun that they hold when they tantalize the mind and the spirit but sometimes I get board looking at them. So to quilt modern does one need to embrace the modern aesthetic? How does it relate to the history and the traditions of quilting? The ladies of Gee's Bend offer a way forward that uses both the fabric at hand and the chance of discovery by following your own voices when piecing a patch work. They were isolated from the museums and galleries that brought us minimalist and conceptual art yet they are heralded as makers of throughly "modern art quilts". I think the ideas of color and field and minimal are interesting but I like the complex layers of patterns and design that comes in a baroque like composition. Therefore I hope this orange project will be a beginning of a new kind of vision modern and traditional at once speaking to my roots and my education and our modern times.