Posts Tagged ‘Irregular shapes’

The Chinese Coins Connection

Sunday, April 29th, 2018

A day or two ago I commented on facebook to Kay Korkos who showed a pic of a vibrant, colourful, bedquilt she made in the traditional Chinese Coins pattern.  I said how that particular pattern had provided ongoing inspiration for many pieces in my Ebb&Flow series which began around 2004.

But then I remembered that I had recently fished Green Island out of the cupboard, and that dates from 1996, so I’ve been inspired by chinese coins for much longer than I had thought.  I sat for a while, looking at it up on the design wall, as I hadn’t really looked at it in ages; and it sort of surprised me how much I love it.  I need to put it up somewhere – or perhaps someone else does 🙂  The irregular shaped top is internally reinforced so that the pieces stay upright flat against the wall and don’t flop forward.

Green Island 142cm x 104cm, 1996,  photographed against black

 

Lines- Seams Waiting To Happen

Tuesday, March 22nd, 2016

I’ve previously blogged about my approach to planning  https://www.alisonschwabe.com/weblog/?p=1010  and in that particular post used a collage of diagrams on pages from it:

Collaged sketch book pages

One was a snippet from a diagrammatic sketch of a man wearing heavy outdoor clothing featuring a fisherman’s rib neck on his sweater.  I saw it in some ad in an Aussie newspaper back in about 1995, and clearly remember it but can’t find the actual pic.  It inspired me to sketch the pattern of knitting and the use those lines and shapes in a commissioned quilt for a book “Quiltskills” 1997, published by the Quilters Guild of NSW.  Each chapter featured particular skills useful to contemporary quiltmakers, illustrated by a quilt made especially to go with the article.  Mine was chapter 2, Irregular Shapes.

Anyway this morning I found a very old and poor image of that quilt, Waterweave”,  the colour of which somehow seems stuck at ‘too green’ but anyway I’ve put it alongside that line diagram to show how for me a basic diagram can lead to an actual quilt.  Its typical of my planning that I work things out as I go, and usually know when its time to stop.

Waterweave quilt and sketch blog

 

As a student and then teacher of geography, illustrating whatever I’m talking about with a simple diagram is what I naturally turn to, so my designs in fabric and thread tend to develop from that kind of mark making, too, and I’ve mentioned before that I see almost any line as a seam waiting to happen.

Revisiting Older Works, or ‘What Was I Thinking?’

Friday, June 13th, 2014

Earlier this year, an article about my four Quilt National quilts appeared here  http://quiltnationalartists.com/journey-landscape-alison-schwabe/  and it seemed a good place to start a broader study for a powerpoint presentation I was asked to give to a  meeting of Ozquilt in Perth WA last month  (May 2014).  It was suggested I might talk on inspirations, themes and my processes.  Naturally, revisiting mixed media work and quilt making done over 35+ years led to  the rediscovery of many works I’d pushed to the back of my memory – some for very good reasons indeed!  Here’s a pair of works made 7 years apart on the theme of water as a major force of nature shaping landscape:

floodwaters #2

Still Waters #2,  1993.   That year we were living in the USA, and early summer  floods occurred all down the mighty Mississippi River valley, leaving thousands of people flooded out, destroying many homes and much infrastructure.  There were many dramatic and harrowing stories in the media, all of which prompted this piece.  Now, the ‘What Was I Thinking?’ bit may be obvious to you, but didn’t occur to me at the time: floodwaters, whether seeping or pouring over a tiled floor are not clear and sparkly!  I still have this piece, and now put it in the category of ‘not a great one’ but a work I had to make, nevertheless.

 

 

Flood,  2000  125cm x 110cm    This flood piece got the swirling muddy waters right – because by this time I was more focused the powerful force of water in/on landscape.  I don’t think this is an especially wonderful a quilt, either, and hardly surprises me it is still ‘In Artist’s Collection’   Again, it had to be made, probably so I could move on.  The murky green main fabric is quilted with freehand water current lines, though they’re hard to see in the clear nylon thread I used in the twin top stitch needle.  Although I have revealed something about this work, it still amazes me that I actually made this one – another ‘What Was I thinking?’ piece.

 

 

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