How it came about...

Black and White, No Grey

 A few folk have asked me about the quilt above and how it came about.....
Well, it all began with the one below:

Edging Into Line

I always loved this little quilt and am glad it's gone  to a good home!
I took a photo of the building, somewhere in "Shakespeare" country in England some time ago..
Now the quilt isn't an exact copy of course...I never do that...I take what interests me, add more and rearrange, simplify, omit what is not of interest etc....but I had the sketch and the idea on the design wall for a long  time.

Then one day I was packing in a hurry to go off to teach a class at Arrowmont (super Arts and crafts school in TN, thoroughly recommend it)....and at the last minute I thought: oh I need to demo a quilt from the start for this particular class....what fabric shall I take?  didn't want to mess around for ages choosing out colors so thought - I'll just go with black and white.

So that limitation both made my fabric choice very easy...and I think made the quilt a lot stronger and more elegant...limitations are good!  Too much is always too much, I think!

 I put the little house together in the class and when I got home then had to figure out the background...  I wanted something to really set off that black and white but not detract from it at all.
This gorgeous blue I'd just double dyed with 3 different blues caught my eye and I loved the idea of  black and white taking center stage (for once) and color being the supporting cast!!  An edge of luscious color just really appealed to me.  When I get the colors right I can almost taste it!

So then, of course, I had to go on and make more black and white quilts with an edge of color:

The Strength of quiet Windows

I thought I'd like to be more abstract though and not tied to a particular photograph....the above quilt is a real beauty and will be shown in Decatur, Atlanta, Ga in September at Different Trains Gallery

along with about 8 others (not all black and white though!).
On Strength of Quiet Windows I got REALLY carried away with all that hand stitching you can see in some of the "windows"...hand stitching is so beautiful, so evocative....

Having done that one, it was time to make something for Quilt National and I got really carried away and pieced a huge wide quilt - it was practically the whole wall in the studio... about 10 feet!

Remembered Lines

This time I focussed on getting a lot more push pull with the black/white lines....don't know if any half-timbered building ever had such crazy stuff going on..but isn't it wild?  Love it!
Well, it was way too huge to enter.....so I thought  hmm I'll just take a bit off on the right, and a bit on the left....and put those pieces  together, add in what's needed....and get a bit more of a wiggle on the top....and ...voila!....
the quilt at the top of this post!
Remembered Lines was accepted by QN and sold to a collector right out of the show which was great! I needed that design wall space for something else....

So now you know!  I love to hear the stories behind the work...do comment and tell me yours!

And if you're looking for a class with lots of personal help with critique....email me...I may have the class just for you!   There's a link on the side bar....

If you have been, thanks for reading!  Elizabeth