I am definitely finding refuge from the dustbowl boys’ room clean-out by updating my blog. Thank you all for giving me a reason to procrastinate!!
Their room has proved to be quite the archaeological pigsty dig. In addition to an entire childhood’s worth of toys found jammed behind a dresser, I found one of my earliest art quilts:
I made this for my oldest son when he was 2– almost 9 years ago! Gwen Marston’s Liberated Quiltmaking had just entered my personal library, as had a pre-printed fabric panel of trucks and cars. I remember buying the fabric; I was feeling so proud of the fact that I was purchasing boy fabric, even as I was scratching my head, wondering how to put together a boy quilt.
Even after 9 years as an art quilter turned fiber artist, I think this is a pretty successful quilt. The truck/car blocks were all wonky sizes, so I added skewed coping strips, log cabin style, to bring the blocks to a workable size. A few coping “strips” of half square triangles and flying geese helped to break up the black background borders. The inner borders are all different: some are flying geese in scrappy fabrics, some are liberated half square triangles, and one side (the viewer’s left) is split between half square triangles and an enlarged, bordered block. At the time, I found this quilt very daring, very arty, very liberating!
If you are new to the art quilt world, or if you are still in the flirting phase of art quilting, I highly recommend reading Gwen’s book. She breaks down different traditional quilt components in such a friendly, breezy style that it is hard to resist trying her techniques. The book remains one of my favorites; I fully credit Liberated Quiltmaking for pointing me on the path towards the artist I am today.
Thanks, Gwen!
1 Comment
June 29, 2008 at 8:45 pm
This is really cute. I love the black background.