Saturday, August 18, 2012

The Festival of Quilts

At this very moment my quilt is hanging at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham! I started working on this quilt a year ago. I first made the fish and then slowly build the rest around it. I used the Ruth B. McDowell's piecing workshop as a guideline.

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I'm so happy to have found her book. Thanks to her method I can work in a rhythm that suites my brain. I can separate the creative work and technical work. With her method almost everything is possible and there is so much room to grow that I will need a life time (or more) to master it, but that is fine because I love the process of it! It is like magic for me.

Number 85

The fish is inspired by tattoo art and the image of the koi-fish has been in my mind for years. During the making process I really tried not to over think it, just follow my intuition.

There was of course some last minute panic. When I had made the last stitches and tried to hang the quilt, it did not hang straight! During  the whole process it had not crossed my mind that that could happen. Thanks to internet I found a solution that worked liked magic: quilt blocking.

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Blocking my quilt
And of course I forgot to take pictures until the very last minute when the lightning was all wrong and my husband had already packed his camera lenses for our vacation. Lessoned learned for the next time!

2 comments:

The Muse of The Day said...

Oh Mari, your quilt is BEYOND fabulous. I wish I could see it in person. Although I love quilting, and I feel totally inspired by quilts like yours, I have never actually finished a large quilt. I am more than a little embarrassed to tell you that I actually have Ruths' books. I think I need to go back and read the last comment/ email I sent to you and reread it as if I had written it to myself. Perhaps I have been missing something about my own journey. Your quilt has something very comfortable about it in a Gee's Bend Quilts sort of way. Do you know their quilts? They are having a small exhibition in Nashville that ends in another couple of weeks, I am going to see it on Tuesday. After seeing the possibilities with your quilt, I am more than a little juiced to go see the exhibit. What ever you do, KEEP GOING. You are on a very good path. I went to the link on blocking - very good tip. I also went to Ruth B. McDowell's website and spent a lovely few minutes in awe. Thanks for giving me a great, creative start to my morning. I love to start the day like this. I love your quilt.
Carolina

The Muse of The Day said...

PS - no issues posting comment on your blog this time.