Archive for Pieced Art Quilts

“Seminole Cloud” Quilt – my Ultimate in Piecing

"Seminole Cloud Quilt" - a contemporary art quilt based on Seminole quiltingAs a child, I remember going to the Seminole reservation in Florida, and being fascinated by the style of sewing that they did. Seminole patchwork is made up of strips of various colored fabrics that are sewn together, cut apart into new strips, and then pieced, cut, pieced and cut over and over to make intricate striped patterns. The result is usually several rows of different colored stripes and then a diamond or sawtooth pattern in the middle. Careful cutting and sewing is involved to make the pieces come out straight, and if you read my last blog, you know that I’m not patient enough to do the practice to be successful at piecing. Thus, “Seminole Cloud Quilt” is my last big attempt at doing much piecing.

It all began rather excitingly. In 1982, I drove to a workshop with Nancy Crow, whose advice regarding my art quilts was pivotal in the direction that my work took. While driving through the mountains of West Virginia to get to the event in Columbus, Ohio, I drove through a terrific storm where bolts of lightning were crashing all round my car. At the end of the workshop, when Ms. Crow was reviewing any of our work that we had brought for “show ans tell”, she told me that the applique work that I had been doing was the direction that I needed to go in. As if to emphasize the point, the piece of wallboard to which my work had been pinned fell off the ledge it had been securely sitting on and crashed to the floor, as if to say “Are you paying attention, Nance?” The combination of the two events, lightning bolts all around me and wallboard crashing to the floor, with the high from the workshop was pretty overwhelming. I came back to Maryland and resolved to somehow tie together some of the free-form piecing that I had learned at the workshop and the applique work I had already been doing on clothing.

Detail of Seminole patchwork stripes in a contemporary art quiltThen I got into trouble by finding a book on how to do Seminole patchwork, THE SEMINOLE PATCHWORK BOOK, by Cheryl Greider Bradkin; 1980. (Scroll halfway down the linked page to find the version of the book I used.) Instead of starting off with one of the simpler patterns in the front of the book, I chose #46 (out of 61 possibilities) which was a much more complicated design. Seven strips of fabric varying from 3/4″ or 2 cm to 1 .75″ or 4.5 cm are sewn together. From the material made from the stripes sewn together,at least three cuts are made, pieces are turned and then sewn back together. How hard could it be I asked myself? I really wanted the Seminole patchwork stripes to be the lightning bolts in my large cloud quilt.

After many cuts and piecings, and many fits of frustration and tears later, I had enough to make the effect I wanted. The overall height of the piece is 82″ or 208.25 cm, with the width at the widest part being 70″ or 177.75 cm.

Detail of hand appliqued and quilted center panel in the contemporary art quilt "Seminole Cloud Quilt"The center section, that you see here, was made separately, and is hand appliqued and quilted in the style that I was doing at the time on the clothing line I was making. All of the edges of the motif pieces were turned under and stitched in place by hand. The quilting on the center section and matching side panel were done while the big cloud shape was not attached, as that’s a lot of layers to work through. The Seminole patchwork stripes were turned under and stitched on by hand with minimal quilting around them, as I didn’t want to distract from the patchwork. The piece has hung in place in my dining room since 1982, and it one of the first things that you see as you walk in my home.

The first comment on my last posting about piecing not being my thing was from my on-line quilting buddy, Kathy Schmidt, whose delightful company is called Quirks Ltd. Her blog has gorgeous photos of her intricately pieced art quilts, and her admonition to me in her comment was in effect to “practice, practice, practice”. Yes, I know, as I hang my head sheepishly, I could practice more and get better at it. However, I hate to be tied to my sewing machine, as I haven’t made a permanent home for it, and I have to seriously rearrange things on my work table to get to it. Perhaps in my next house????

 What are some triumphs and disappointments that you’ve experienced as you’ve tried out different media? I don’t like clay or dye as they’re really messy? What about you?

Why not leave a comment as to your thoughts on this posting. Please take a minute, fill out the form below or by clicking on the “comments/no comments link” at the top of the posting, and then share your ideas with the rest of us. We all grow when we share our thoughts and impressions, so why not join our growing community of those who appreciate art quilts and textile arts. We’d love to hear from you!

You can see more of my art work on my web site at www.fiberfantasies.com (be patient as it loads; it’s worth it) and can find me on Google + , Facebook,  and Twitter.

To find out how to buy my art work, please check out “How to Buy my Art Work” in the “Pages” section to the right of this blog.

Piecing is not myThing!

Pieced square patch quilting samplesOn the left are two samples of pieced square patch quilting I made back in the 70s, soon after I made my first quilt. I enjoyed looking at the complexity that could be made by sewing together little tiny geometric shapes to make bigger ones in my first quilting attempt, and I picked out another pattern to try another pieced quilt. I quickly became frustrated at how precise you need to be with the cutting and the sewing. This care is especially true if you’re combining triangles, as at least one edge will be on the bias, or the diagonal of the fabric. That’s the stretchest direction on woven fabric, and while the warp (vertical) and the weft (horizontal) threads on a piece may fit together easily when sewn together, the bias can crawl all over the place under the sewing machine needle no matter how well it’s been pinned or basted.

In the above samples, the one on the right is 34.5″ T x 12″ W, or 87.5cm T x 30.5cm W. The piece on the left, made of the exact same fabrics and sized pieces, measures 2″ or 5 cm shorter and 1/2″ or 1.5 cm less wide. As you sew together the little squares and rectangles, 1/8″ or 4mm off in the stitching together of the sides quickly becomes more and more off as you continue sewing more and more pieces together. The above two sections could have been sewn together by putting a running stitch along the edge of the wider piece and “easing” or taking up very small “pleats” in the larger side so that they didn’t really show up. Then, with heavy quilting on the larger piece, the ripples created by easing could be flattened and not show up as much. I decided that would have been too much work and quickly abandoned the project, setting aside the samples until I was cleaning out my studio.

Sample of machine piecing and applique for a quilted topWhile I’m not sloppy when it comes to my sewing, the confines of sitting at a sewing machine felt constricting early on in my art quilting career. Here is a sample made some time in the 90s when I got my new Bernina 1630 and I was trying out some of the programmed computer stitches built into the machine. At the time, that machine was top of the line, and still has a motor that keeps on going. I was piecing together strips of ribbon and fabric and you can see how quickly the strips became distorted as I moved from left to right. Besides the differences in “give” in the different fabrics I was using, I was also employing different stitches to fasten the strips together. The two varying factors of fabric content and stitch scrunching contributed to a lot of discrepancies in the length (17″ or 43.25cm) at the longest side to 9.75″ or 24.75cm at the widest part of the sample. They were supposed to be the same length!

In 1979, Maria da Conceicao’s innovative book, WEARABLE ART, came out and i was mesmerized by her use of various strips of fabric with folds and other manipulations interspersed with luxurious fabrics. One of the things that I remember from the book was that she often used lace and other fabric motifs over some of her strips of fabric to cover up “mistakes”. I thought I would employ that method and so I also used motifs deliberately placed to balance out for the eye some of the other motifs that had been used. This sample was one of my early attempts at overlaying fabrics.

I greatly admire the skill that goes into piecing some of the intricate art quilts that I’ve seen, especially those that have curved seams. However, applique, for me is so much more forgiving, and quickly became the technique that I employ the most in constructing my art quilt tops. I have just too good of an eye not to see seams that are 1/8″ or 4mm off and I HATE to rip anything out.

Why have you chosen your favorite art medium? What others did you try and why did you abandon them?

Why not leave a comment as to your thoughts on this posting. Please take a minute, fill out the form below or by clicking on the “comments/no comments link” at the top of the posting, and then share your ideas with the rest of us. We all grow when we share our thoughts and impressions, so why not join our growing community of those who appreciate art quilts and textile arts. We’d love to hear from you!

You can see more of my art work on my web site at www.fiberfantasies.com (be patient as it loads; it’s worth it) and can find me on Google + , Facebook,  and Twitter.

To find out how to buy my art work, please check out “How to Buy my Art Work” in the “Pages” section to the right of this blog.