Space Fish

Quilt No 122

January 2018

There are no fish in outer space.  I think that’s a darn shame, so I’ve made it my mission to correct the fishlessness of space.  Somebody had to do it.

The background of this quilt is a piece of fabric I painted with Setacolor light sensitive dyes.  I overlaid it with cheese cloth and foil confetti stars.  I’m pretty happy that I did this outside, because the lawn mower was still blowing around tiny foil stars a whole year later.  Had I done this indoors I would probably still be spotting stars in my oatmeal or consorting with the crumbs under the stove. 

The fish are my first attempt at what I call “extreme trapunto”.  (Trapunto = stuffing).  I put fusible on the back of the fish but only fused the outer edges, squeezing the shapes while fusing them, so that they bulged outward.  This allowed for plenty of stuffing, yielding fish that are on the high end of the extreme plumpness scale.

Space Fish was quilted with various gold metallic threads plus Superior Glimmer thread to give it a little more sparkle.  You need that sort of thing when you’re in deep space.  Life in a nebula can be lonely, even for a fish.  

Cubist Phase

Quilt No. 121

December 2017

Cubist Phase is a bit of a departure from my usual quilting projects.  It came about because I simply could not resist the lure of something called a “One Block Wonder”.  I’d heard of “boy wonders” and “Wonder Bread” and grew up with “The Wonderful World of Disney”, so anything steeped in wonder gives me goose bumps.

For this quilting method, the claim of being a one block wonder is valid.  All the blocks, including the cube shaped ones, are the same in terms of their shape, so there’s just the “one block”.  But really, the “one block wonder” moniker misses the most exciting attribute of this quilt – all the blocks (excluding the cubes, which are optional) are made from only one fabric.  So it’s really a “One Fabric Wonder” quilt.  The quilt is made up of a whole field of blocks, all from the same fabric, and no two of these blocks are the same.  Surely magic is involved?

The quilt is constructed by lining up multiple layers of fabric so that the pattern is perfectly aligned in each of six layers.  That is, the bird in layer 1 is in the exact same location as the same bird in layer 6.  Where to go from there is far from obvious.  Like learning meditation or heart surgery, you need someone who knows more than you do to show you the way.  That person must guide you down the path that involves cutting these carefully aligned layers into strips and then cutting those strips into triangles, and ending up with something that ultimately turns into a quilt.

Despite my fondness for reverse engineering, I know I would be stymied if I tried to unravel how to construct this by merely looking at a finished quilt.  The whole quilt  appears to be composed of hexagon shapes, but no actual hexagon-shaped individual blocks are ever sewn together for this quit.  Wah?  Half hexagons only get upgraded to full hexagons when neighbouring strips are sewn together.  For this journey, I had to have faith, allow the rules to dictate my actions, enslave myself to obedience.  I had to suppress my natural tendency towards rebellion.  I had to soothe myself with chocolate, drink only decaff, and keep a cold compress handy for my forehead.

Original fabric prior to cutting for One Block Wonder

This quilt also requires patience if you are inclined to be motivated by the creative aspects of making a quilt.  With One Block Wonder, the creativity comes in the later phases when you start auditioning layouts for the blocks that form the hexagons you see.  It’s a waiting game.  Stamina is imperative.

I learned this procedure at guild meetings and a workshop.  For your own guided tour, Jackie O’Brien’s step-by-step videos  will have you one block wondering in no time.

I wanted to keep at least some of the birds and flowers from the original fabric visible as part of the quilt, so I’ve captured some of these “whole” objects on the border with raw edge applique. 

“One Block Wonder” or “One Fabric Wonder”?  This quilting technique is definitely both!