How do the Amish Have Time to Quilt?

Posted on May 1, 2011 by Gina

Amish Culture, Beliefs and Traditions Identified in their Quilts

The Amish have an expression that all Amish schoolchildren learn from a very young age, the meaning of ‘Joy’. The needs of the individual are given up in order to promote the harmony and success of the group.

It’s this belief, that one’s own needs and desires come last after everything else that gives the Amish the determination and drive they are so often credited with in everything they seem to do.

Applied to quilting, no matter how tired you might be after all of your chores are done, you still have a responsibility to help out others before you consider your own wants and needs.

If one of your children needs a new quilt, you need to find time to complete it. If a family member will be getting married soon and you want to present them with a new quilt as a wedding gift, you need to find time to make it. If you are bringing extra income to the family through your Amish quilting skills, you need to find time to produce it. The question for the Amish is not ‘how do they find the time,’ it’s ‘how can they not find the time’ if it helps to promote the success of the greater good.

Yes the Amish do have incredibly busy lives filled with long hard work throughout the day. And they find time to create such things of beauty as the Amish quilts for another fine reason -  they enjoy the process of making something from nothing while also providing for their families and community at large. Creativity is allowed and is joyfully explored through bold colors and geometric designs in what we “others” might describe as their otherwise bland and static world. This joyful spirit is what makes the Amish unique and this is why and how the Amish find the time to quilt.

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Fibonacci for Quilters

Posted on April 21, 2011 by Gina

Quilt Designs Based Fibonacci Spirals

The Fibonacci spiral is created by drawing arcs connecting the opposite corners of squares of a Fibonacci tileing, as subsequent squares take a quarter turn. This spiral formation pattern is found throughout the natural world, the nautilus shell being the most striking. For generations quilters have loved the Snail’s Trail quilt block. It’s Fibonacci!

These math diagrams help us see the details of the progression of the spiral. The middle diagram is the Fibonacci spiral aligned on a polar graph. The third diagram has been named the cosmic bud.

Many quilt blocks are based on the Fibonacci sequence 1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55…

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Orderly Chaotic Quilts

Posted on April 11, 2011 by Gina

Ordered Chaos in Quilt Making

In art, as in life, when something is too ordered it becomes boring, but when it is too chaotic, it can be overwhelming.

detail of Undercurrents by Eileen Lauterborn

Unity and variety are the two dominant principles of design. A designer or artist can set a mood, a tension a peacefulness or a chaos, depending on how unity and variety are balanced in a composition. One of the pleasures many quilters have enjoyed through generations of “quilt history” has been in creating erratic looking orderly quilts. Quilters have shown an innate sense of ordered chaos when they planned and sewed the type of bed coverings we usually label traditional.

ordered chaos, detail of a traditional quilt style

ordered chaos in an antique crib quilt

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This Crazy Quilt Called America

Posted on April 1, 2011 by Gina

In the CQA Quilting News,

by Stanley Crouch,  NYDailynews.com

651 stunning quilts on display at the Park Avenue Armory,NYC

People move to America in order to become what they want. After all, individual freedom is the essence of the supposed American Dream. That is made clear at an exhibit of quilts at the Park Avenue Armory, which was built to honor the first regiment that answered Lincoln’s call when the Civil War began 150 years ago.

On display are 651 stunning red and white quilts loaned by Joanna Rose to the American Folk Art Museum. The wife of Daniel Rose, one of New York’s most high-minded philanthropists and well-respected real estate developers, she began collecting quilts in 1957. They have never been exhibited in a single space like this.

A gala was held on the eve of the exhibit’s opening March 25, 2011.

Quilts became popular in the 19th century, when American women sewed the swatches of material into a wide variety of forms and geometrical shapes. Though many quilts existed solely for household use, many others were made in support of abolition and to fund Civil War troops.

Glimpsing their quality today makes clear how superior these quilts are to most nonobjective modern painting. The best are intricate and brilliant in the way that jazz is, a refined musical form too often overshadowed by shallow entertainment, insipid trends and academic pretension.

Those who came out for the gala stretched across the professions and our highly diverse population. These people seemed to highlight and complement the imaginative and varied designs of quilts that capture our nation’s entire history. Indeed, the quilts reminded many of their backgrounds and cultural heritage, especially since quilts have been central to various cultures that are today quintessentially American, no matter how far apart they once seemed.

crouch.stanley@gmail.com

Stanley Crouch‘s column appears in the Daily News every Monday. Stanley, who has written for the paper since 1995, has received many awards for his writing, including a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant. His books have been widely praised and he was recently inducted into the Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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3 Dimensional Tucked Quilts – “high tech tucks”

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Gina

3 Dimensional Tucks – Two Quilters and Their Techniques

High Tech Tucks 35, Caryl Bryer Fallert

Named as one of the most influential quilters in North American quilt history, Caryl Bryer Fallert is internationally esteemed for extending and enhancing traditional tucking techniques in her art quilts.

Caryl’s award winning quilts suggest many layers of meaning and illusion. She has steadily developed a personal style through her unique thought process, resulting in compositions that combine her astonishingly beautiful hand dyed fabrics with surprising subject matter and outstanding finishing quilting.

High Tech Tucks kits

Purchasing a  pattern for her High Tech Tucks will assist you by speeding up the learning process for making tucks in your own experimentation with fabric and texture.

Karina Thompson

Karina Thompson, from Birmingham, England has advanced tucks to another level. Karina’s art pieces involve stitching, tucking, slashing and heat bonding. Quoting her website, her fabric art often “suggests countryside landscapes while exploring techniques and materials, for example, ploughed earth with a heavy frost on it.” Continue reading →

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Tile Quilt Block Ideas

Posted on March 9, 2011 by Gina

Tile Quilt Examples and Inspirational Photos

Orlando group sampler

As a follow-up to my Feb. 23, 2011 post, Tile Quilt Revival, I intended to show examples of tile quilts depicting the Alhambra in Morrocco. Since then I see that Quilters Newsletter has done just that. Finley and Jone’s Book Tile Quilt Revival is receiving quite a lot of coverage recently so I am not going to add another article about tile quilts.

Instead, view these examples of what some quilt makers are doing with the newly rediscovered technique of tile quilts. Notice in the group quilt, left, the quilters are taking advantage of and fussy cutting large scale printed fabrics.

And scroll down to pictures of a variety of modern glass and ceramic mosaics, I hope they get your imagination fired up, as in this dictionary entry for “looking for ways to stimulate tile quilts”:

Continue reading →

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Reinventing Tile Quilts

Posted on February 23, 2011 by Gina

New Visions of Traditional Tile Quilts

tile quilt revivalThe recent publication of Tile Quilt Revival by Carol Jones and Bobbi Finley has generated quite a variety of newish interpretations of an almost forgotten style of applique quilting.

Motivated by the exquisite beauty and workmanship of quilts from the 1800’s that have the appearance of broken tiles with grout lines, Jones and Finley had adapted the “old”  look to a fresh and contemporary treatment using contemporary large scale printed fabric. In many of the examples they selected for their book, Jones and Finley chose current fabrics in a redesign of the rich heritage of older and antique quilts.

Shown above are details from the Hattie Burdick quilt, c.1876, in the collection of the International Quilt Study Center, (left) and, Boston Pavement quilt, c.1895, in the New England Quilt Museum, (right).

Fusing and More

Quilters are ingenious with their creative energy in adapting new interpretations to many traditional quilting styles.  In the photo left, this quilter is sewing down the straight edges of the “tiles” with a short running stitch, leaving thin areas between the tiles.

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Bento Box Quilts

Posted on January 31, 2011 by Gina

Bento Boxes and Bento Box Quilts

– good for the environment (reuse) and good for your stash (use up)

‘O-bento’ is what the Japanese call a packed meal, usually lunch. Bento boxes have internal dividers, and sometimes several stacked layers, so different kinds of food sit in their own little compartments.

As early as the Meiji period (1868 to 1912), bentos were being brought to schools in Japan.

Lately, hand-made bentos have been making a comeback and not only in the lunchroom.

Bento style quilts are popping up, and what appears to be a simplistic design, the typical bento quilt block pattern can actually create a lot of visual impact depending on color choices and value placement. In fact, “bento designs” are quickly evolving as quilt makers blend new and old traditions and techniques.

View a tutorial on making a bento style quilt

The dramatic layout, below left, has the mid values arranged to form a secondary pattern that actually dominates the original bento block.

The quilt below right has almost a “magic eye” quality and you will notice that the quilt maker used more strips in each block than in the typical bento pattern.

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Squares and Rectangles – the basics of Quilting 101

Posted on January 24, 2011 by Gina

a side by side comparison of reduced and enlarged views of the art quilts created by Kent Williams

Kent’s Website www.rkentwilliams.com

Kent Williams is a self taught quilt maker. Like most quilt makers, Kent is enthralled with the simplicity of geometric basics. What makes Kent’s art quilts outstanding is his innate ability to foresee big things resulting from the interplay of color and movement and using only small squares and small rectangles.

VW VW detail

The viewer is first stunned by the size and power of Kent’s work, and almost immediately, we want to look up close – how does he do that? Follow the Read More to see more of Kent’s art quilts… Continue reading →

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Quilts For Kids in Nepal

Posted on January 23, 2011 by Gina

oops, an error was made earlier this month in this post. The URL for contacting Quilts For Kids Nepal was incorrect.

Support the women of Quilts for kids Nepal at www.quiltsnepal.org

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