Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Change: Then and Now

As I thought about the word change in relation to quilting, I realized that I have been quilting for 30 years as of this year. I began by hand sewing 9-patches in an Amish quilt class and I have never looked back. Since I was using solids at the time, I opted to create a background using solid, hand dyed fabrics in a 9-patch pattern. On top of that, I created a flower of sorts using soy silk fiber, painted and melted tyvek and yarn. The flower is a statement about where I am with quilting today. I love embellishing with dimensional materials and playing with new products and techniques.
Here is the soy silk fiber with the tyvek piece in the center. I think there is some angelina fiber mixed with the soy silk to add a little sparkle.
I crocheted fuzzy yarn and couched it to the background to create these tendrils. ...after I quilted the background, of course!

5 comments:

  1. Karen,
    Thanks for the memories, I've been quilting for 36 years. I preferred the solids back then because they offered more flexiblity...never was very traditional. The flower pops off the background, very dimensional. Keep experimenting and playing.
    Jan

    ReplyDelete
  2. The colors on your embellished section are just over the top. So rich, such lovely contrast. They sing. Helen

    ReplyDelete
  3. The first thing that I saw was a Jellyfish swimming along in the ocean. Colors were opposite, but that is a "change" too!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Karen... this is a wonderful tribute to your quilting years... in a simple, elegant statement. I love the taditional Amish... but the 'modern' flower using 21st century materials. I really do like it.

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is very cool. Amish to wild and wooly flower. Wow.

    Sue

    ReplyDelete