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Designs and Themes for quilts
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Design is to create using a plan, pattern or diagram. The idea or theme is expressed through the design choices made. I plan some quilt designs. Other times it is an organic experience growing each step with no preconceptions.
Ideas are triggered by fabric, photographs, other art or patchwork, emotion, nature, music, and enjoying life. An apple computer is used to plan some quilts and collages. Various graphic programs (Illustrator, PhotoShop) help generate patterns and ideas. These are my logical quilts yet I still allow some space for color changes during later steps.
Other quilts need no drawn pattern and their vision is firmly planted in the mind. These are a combination of logical and intuitive thinking, based on previous work in the series. Examples would be some abstracts and sealife series.
The last, and smallest group of quilts, come from an unknown space inside. No pattern or design to follow and using only emotional responses, to color and shape as the guide. The quilt is built in a series of small steps often combining elements left over from other projects. These are the pieces that stretch me, frustrate me, engulf my mind and immensely please when they work out. “Zebra” and “Falling Fabrics” are examples of this style.
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I have been sewing quilts long enough to say I have no one theme other than to make something never made before. Each quilt is connected to the one in front and the one in back.
I like this process and enjoy my work when I can shift from piece to piece. And with the shifting different themes appear and than reappear. Sometimes not until years later will I pick up the theme of a previous quilt and continue exploring the design. Also color can dictate a theme or call out to be used when neglected in the previous work.
It is all a question of balance, rhythm, and allowing the process to flow. And through this flow my designs and themes appear. |
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