Sunday 9 October 2011

International Quilt Challenge

Partly inspired by seeing the work of the Twelve by Twelve group at Festival of Quilts, I have recently joined an internet challenge group, The International Quilt Challenge.  Sixteen of us, including quilt artists from the UK, Ireland, Australia and the US are producing a piece every two months to a theme set by each member in turn.  The first theme, chosen by Annabel, was Sunshine and Shadow.  For a long time  I couldn't decide what to do then, pondering one morning with the deadline imminent, I became fascinated by the shadows of my neighbour's ornamental plum tree on my bedroom curtains, which reminded me of yet another photograph taken by my late husband, of evening shadows on the mesh curtains in the downstairs bay window: 

What I found particularly intriguing was the way that the shadows of the leaves in some cases were crisp and in others half-formed and varied in depth/intensity.

The resulting quiltlet was composed intuitively and at speed with no sketchbook input.  The ideal base fabric presented itself to me - a piece of silk charmeuse I'd dyed some time earlier, and the shadows were made from layers of silk and polyester organza I'd also dyed.  I ironed the organzas onto black mistyfuse, then cut and bonded freely composing as I went.  Then finished the composition with free-machine quilting. Though the end result is in my view a bit limited, and has nowhere near the depth of some of the other pieces in the challenge, I do sort of like it...



5 comments:

Lyn said...

it's lovely, and surprising what can inspire you.
xxx

Julie said...

I do sort of like it too ;-) You have captured the hard and soft edges well. You've also captured the latest theme too!

mzjohansen said...

Just out of curiosity - were you invited to join or were you looking for a challenge group? I'm looking for a place to park myself for textile themed challenges - so just had to ask how your process went.

Cats are the best the best inspiration!

Peneller said...

Well done you! You've really captured the reflections from the photo. Are you bringing it on tuesday?
Love penny

Unknown said...

Lovely piece, and as well as the sunshine and shadows, I can also detect a gentle breeze giving movement to the leaves.