I am truly living the dream! Retired, making art quilts which pay for more than my 
fabric habit, looking forward to every day I get to create and sew for hours!! If you are new to my blog, you will quickly learn there are two primary qualities of my art quilts: curves and color! This week I finished an abstract curved and colorful wall quilt in purples and blues. This quilt, like all my art quilts, is not matchy matchy, includes many different fabrics from batiks to prints but rarely any solids…sometimes some blender fabrics with tone on tone designs in a single color.
I launched into this new curves quilt after having spent a few weeks working primarily with yellows, oranges, and maroons. I desperately needed to give my eyes and my heart some purples and blues. When a large abstract circle quilt in these colors sold recently, I took that as an omen it was time to pull these colors out again and try something new.
Last fall I made a quilt called “Variety is the Spice of Life” which was abstract curved piecing in yellows, oranges, reds, pinks, and some maroons. IT IS BRIGHT and BEAUTIFUL!! I thought a similar design in purples and blues would be fun. It was!! In fact, it is one of just a few quilts I’ve made in which the customer can hang it any way they want. While I designed it the way it is shown at the start of this blog, it also looks good the other three ways which I have also included in this blog.
This quilt had a big bump along the way…..I had an abstract print fabric with purples and blues on a white background pieced into it. You can see the unfinished first draft quilt in a photo with two curved pieces in this fabric. I LOVE THAT PRINT FABRIC! But…I did not love the way it looked in this quilt. So there was some ripping and repiecing that needed to be done to reach the final finished product.
When things like this happen, I am reminded how important it is to step back at least 10 feet and view your quilt (before quilting it). Also to take photos and look at them over the course of a few days. Even small photos on your iphone give you a sense of how the quilt is or is not coming together. Finally, I always hang the unfinished but pieced quilt on my design wall and pay particular attention to how I feel or Like/Don’t Like it every time I walk into my sewing studio for a few days. There may be color theory that explains what works and what doesn’t. I just know it most of the time if I let myself be open to feeling and thinking about a new design.
Curves and Color…a unique feast for your eyes and nurturance for your soul.
