FFFC #66

Out of pure laziness I'm cross-posting my entry into FFFC Challenge #66.  I was determined to get this one done relatively close to the deadline.  I was sewing up until about five minutes before I had to be at work, so my last seam was wonky, but I will fix it soon.  I enjoyed doing this one alot.  I would never have known how to do the lines, without the help of some of my classmates at the Crow workshop.  I will soon post about that amazing experience, I promise.

Here's my entry, slightly late, needing a little straightening, ironing and quilting, but "done."  I have never been a good one for following directions, so after reading the basic challenge and looking at some of the links, I just jumped  in and started my own project, and only noticed this morning that you had actual directions and a step by step example!  Oh well,  I was really excited about jumping in because the challenge seemed to relate really well to a workshop I attended last week in which we worked on using line in compositions as well as working with color families and values. 

I used the colors from Van Gogh’s Starry Night as my color inspiration. 

My inspiration source for “line” was not a photo but generalized from the motif of repeated units, usually squares, containing lines.   There are many abstract quilt artists who work with this idea, and I’ve always been intrigued by it, so I thought this was a good time to try it out.  I first thought I would use curves to hint at the curving shapes in Starry Night, but realized I didn’t even know how to do straight lines yet! Maybe I can incorporate the curving lines in the quilting.  Here are some links to a few art quilters who use lines that I was especially inspired by :  Nelda Warkentin, Cory Volkert, Paula Kovarik, Catherine Whall Smith, and Lisa Call.  I especially love the way Lisa Call treats lines in her work.  I saw this piece at Quilt National last year and was spellbound by it.  It’s hard to see in the photos but the light objects are done with quilted lines and the rest of the piece is very heavily quilted as well.

Looking forward to thoughts and comments.  This was a fun learning experience for me, thanks Cynthia, for such a creative challenge idea!

Sharon