LAYERS

This is my latest quilt 'Layers' (well, the one that is actually finished) and as you can see, it is completely and utterly different to my other quilts.  

The quilt is based on some images that have been floating around in my head for some time, since seeing the work of photographer Martin Eisenhawer, whom I have been privileged to meet and whose monochromatic wildlife photographs really spoke to me. (Click here to see some of Martin's photographs).  I was intrigued by Martin's photographs that had an element of colour in an otherwise colourless environment.   

I decided to have colour hidden into the background rather than as a bright element, which I felt better portrayed my idea.  I wanted plenty of texture and not a lot of white (a dominant feature of the photographs that I so liked), which generally speaking, I don't like on quilts.  Finally I didn't want it to be representational.    

I liked the idea of a circle as it reminds me of the Japanese flag and a lot of Martin's photographs have been taken in Japan, so it seemed a good link.  This was a very fulfilling exercise for me, especially as I was thinking about and constructing the quilt differently from my norm.

To print the circle, I cut a paper circle and placed it under a sheet of plastic. I also marked out the size of the quilt so that the circle was positioned in the correct place (and reversed!).

I painted the circle with Golden Yellow print paste and mono printed it onto the fabric.  After cleaning off the plastic, I lightly painted on a layer of black print paste and overprinted the circle.  Unlike my previous mono printing experiments, I used a less is more approach, as I definitely wanted to keep the background white showing through.

After it was washed, the Golden Yellow looked less orange in colour and again had a slightly green cast to it where the black dye hit it.  However, this really knocked back the colour into the background and stopped it from overwhelming the quilt, which I liked.

I printed up several pieces of fabric with the same basic idea.  This was a useful exercise in learning how to control the printing result.

I used machine quilting, but in the circle I also hand stitched heavy gold thread in random lines.  The gold isn't obvious except close up to the quilt, but I think it helps to lift the colour somewhat.  It was fun to do some hand stitching for a change.

My quilting aim was to achieve a heavily textured look.  Rather than free motion, I used the walking foot (gasp!) and twin needles.  Using a walking foot to quilt was a new experience for me and it took some adjusting to the foot controlling the quilting and being very linear, rather than me swinging about all over the place.  I had a very strong vision of linear quilting and ended up unpicking some diagonal lines that I had initially sewn (wow, THAT is why people don't free motion quilt, you can unpick with ease!).

I have never used twin needles before and the one thing I learnt was, don't try to reverse stitch as they snap or bend really easily.  I worked my way through several of these expensive needles before that particular penny finally dropped!  I had different widths of twin needle, so I just used the next one at hand, until I had filled quilt a lot of the quilt.  The twin needles give a sort of 'tucked' look to the quilting.  I then switched to a single needle and completed the quilting.  Initially I aimed to mirror the lines of the printing with my quilting, but that was next to impossible and I also liked the texture of more random quilting.

It isn't easy to see but I used white, light and medium grey and black thread for most of the quilting.  Over the circle area I used a lot of gold thread in two shades.  Finally, just to bring the circle fully into the quilt, I quilted a few lines of orange.  The orange is only really obvious close up but it adds interest.

The night I decided to sandwich the quilt, I didn't have any appropriate fabric, so I grabbed some spare white fabric and coloured in a large circle using my water-soluble wax pastels and then ran a wet paintbrush over it to blend the colour.  I also used a wet paintbrush and the black pastel and just swiped black streaks to fill in the background.  Using the same method I stencilled (using freezer paper) the word Layers.

I used the same method to make the hanging sleeve, but much preferred the look of the wrong side of the fabric, which has these lovely water marks.  One thing I like about the quilt is how the stitching on the back looks.  You can just see how the twin needle brings some of the top colour to the back, so it looked rather like ladders.  I almost considered quilting in reverse as I liked the look so much, but then thought it would distract too much from what I was trying to achieve at the front.

The final new element for me was not to bind the quilt and in fact I even posted it as finished, having simply zig-zagged the edge.

When Alan came in to see the quilt (as above) he told me that the fabric looked better before I had quilted it and that it needed binding as it looked unfinished.  Wow, harsh critic!  He was right about the binding, so I sat up until 1.30 am hand sewing rat tail binding to the quilt.

While I was sewing the binding, it gave me time to think about Alan's reaction and how we view art, in whatever form it takes.  Like many people, I am often at a loss to understand what a painting is trying to convey or how the artist got from point A to point B.  While this is never going to be a favourite quilt, it has really opened my eyes to the process of interpreting concepts in a more abstract way.  Martin's photographs left me with images and thoughts that have stayed with me, and from them I chose to interpret loneliness and starkness.  I initially thought about asking Martin if I could make a literal copy of one of his photos into fabric, which I would have adored doing, but I knew it would be exactly that, a copy, and that what had so moved me in the photos (the feelings) would somehow not be mine.  It has also made me understand why working in a series, interpreting the same idea in different ways, is a constructive experience for the artist, whatever the medium.

As you can read, making this quilt has in some ways been a bit of a journey for me.  I know in theory, you should see what I see in the quilt, but I understand that what you see, is a yellow spot in a black and white background!!!  Well, it is a learning curve for me when all said and done.  What more can we ask than we keep on learning something new?