Art Quilts by Kathy York

No. 11

78.5 x 53.5

The idea for this one stemmed from some outtakes of No. 9.  I had cut out these humps and started playing with them on the design wall, and then decided to go for it, and make a quilt that included them. (PS, I still have two of the humps left for yet another quilt that will come later).

I placed them on my IKEA rug so that I could get a sense of scale and how much space I would need to make the design work. The rug is printed in a grid, so it was easy to use the tape measure to get the approximate dimensions. 

And as my next quilt in the HST series, I was not looking forward to having to make another largish quilt.  But, the colors SING! And, it was still cold outside when I started. And, all I really wanted to do was to go outside and work in the garden and prepare for spring. So it was an excellent distraction.

The color palette for the background:

I pulled all of these from my stash. I did have the yellow too, but not nearly enough of it, so I had to order more, and then wait for it to arrive. I hate waiting...

You may notice a lot of yellow in this room now? I didn't. It wasn't until one of my kids came by and said "I see you are still in to yellow." that I noticed, and then had to laugh at myself. I actually see color as a transitory thing. There is yellow there now, but this is my studio and the colors are changing all the time. 

The yellow on the design wall will be cut into narrow strips and then joined together with an even thinner strip of the colors. This is a lot of rotary ruler work with the cutting, and keeping track of which strip goes where.

I always feel so grateful to have a design wall that is big enough to accommodate my big ideas!

Next is to cut the 3/4" wide strips of color! These browns will slowly transition to greens (just like my garden).

I like the scale of the raw strips of fabric here, though I know they will be minimized later after sewing them together.  Here's a view of how much the scale changes after stitching.

It definitely makes the color strips a minor player in the design, but it is a nice effect and just what I wanted for this one. 

More to come!