“The Magic of Fabric” by Diane Gaudynski

Diane Gaudynski transports anyone who views her work to another place. A land where feathers and swirls and circles and crosshatch and stipple and thread and needle come as near to perfection as any of us have ever witnessed. Seeing her work simply mesmerizes. Eyes search every inch, mouths form ohhs and aahhs escape like sighs and yes, some are moved to tears. In her S.O.S. inteview with The Alliance For American quilts is such a tribute to our ancestor quilters. And her retelling of what inspired the colors for the featured log cabin quilt made me laugh and feel such delight. I do hope you'll visit her interview and read about Fluffy, her feline muse. But first, get comfortable and enjoy Diane's romance with fabric that's so evident in the way she speaks of quilting, fabrics, color and this community of quilters. -- Dawn

(Photo: A selection of Cherrywood cottons for a possible class project.)

Fabric is “Magic” contained in cloth.

Quilters know this. It’s instinctive.

I recently thought my family room looked dull and lifeless in these grey cloudy autumn days, went shopping and indulged in a new silk throw pillow.

The color is bronze/umber and shines like an oak leaf in autumn, and has tiny pleats through the center part that catch the light even more, giving texture and more angles for the light to bounce from. It lights up the room.

One new piece of fabric turned a graying dull old lady of a room into a warm and inviting place. I am going to get another silk pillow today to finish the job. And do some dusting too, always helps. And then look for some silk fabric in this shade to add to my mostly cotton quilts.

Earlier this year I was at a big quilting event where progressive sessions were held, one group would leave, and for a day or two the place would be empty of all but a few quilters who stayed on to attend or teach at the next class. When the quilters left, the atmosphere at this beautiful location suddenly seemed to me flattened, depressed, void of color and life.

I sat with non-quilters for meals and discussed mundane things. When the quilters started flooding in to the registration building for the next session it was as if the sun came out. Smiles, color, laughter, joy, bags of fabric and supplies piled high made that place come to life once again. One could not help but feel better just seeing these people arrive, quilters who use fabric to express their take on life and their art. They had packed magic in their bags. I knew mealtime from then on would be exhilarating!

(Photo: Free motion machine quilting on hand dyed sateen by Wendy Richardson.)

It was difficult in that “off” time making conversation with people who did not have private hoards of fabric, rooms devoted to them in their homes, plans to add more finds at any opportunity. The quest for the perfect fabric for the next quilt is always there with us, and the excitement of the hunt or the find puts roses in cheeks, sparkle in eyes, and beauty in the finished quilts.

I have always loved fabric—the colors, textures, designs, the hand of it, the softness or crispness, the challenge of what you could do with a new and wonderful find. Before I could even read, I began my journey into fabric involvement by sewing doll clothes with scraps from our own clothes. I then progressed to sewing for my younger sister to learn all the basics (she was too young to be a critic) and then to my own clothes in high school and for twenty years after that….. until I discovered piecing and quilting.

(Photo: Free motion echo quilting on silk dupioni fabric with #100 silk threads)

During those years I learned and loved everything about the fabric: selvedges, the grainline, how it behaved in sewing it, washing and preparing it, pressing fabric, discerning the good from the not so good in quality. I shopped at manufacturers’ outlets and had access to the best wools, cottons, corduroys and hounds tooth, gabardines and batiste, silks, crepes and satins, all beautiful stuff, for great prices. I fearlessly cut into it and made clothes and decorator items, monster bed spreads that went to the floor with insets of stuffed cording. Making machine quilted bed quilts is nothing compared to the weight of that quilted corduroy bedspread I sewed on my original Singer Silver Touch ‘N Sew.

When I began piecing and making quilts, there was very little variety in quality 100% cotton available, and I made do with blends, and bright primary colored cottons, but I wasn’t happy. A trickle of quilt fabrics appeared in our new quilt shops back in the late 1970’s, and they were fabulous, like water in a parched desert. The colors, the lovely hand of them, the prints and designs, oh my. I still have remnants of the first Jinny Beyer collection, and always tell the story in my “Mud” lecture about searching everywhere for some mustard colored cotton for my quilt, made with all cool greens and purples available in the late 80’s. Mustards and khakis were not around. It was all dusty blues and old rose. I found that fabric, and it made the quilt work. It saved that quilt.

Being a quilt artist requires an extensive library of fabric. When you begin a project or find your work “needs” something, not sure what, you will always have that library and be able to rummage through it and find what the quilt needs. Maybe it’s my favorite mustard, maybe hot pink, or dusty teal or scarlet or aubergine. Maybe something not 100% cotton, as first we turned to nothing but cotton, learned our craft, and now have branched out into including any kind of fabric in the universe in our quilts. We indulge shamelessly in fabric.

(Photo: A block from my quilt “Shadows of Umbria” which featured large scale vintage type fabrics floating in a sea of heavily quilted Cherrywood cottons.)

I machine quilt my quilts on a home machine, and have to adapt what fabrics I choose so that they will work with a machine stitch, allow proper tension, not stretch and distort, etc. Fabrics are auditioned for color and scale of print, but also for how they will handle when machine quilted. Will the thread morph nicely with the fabric or will it sit on top and look stringy and pathetic? Will quilting show? Will the fabric sabotage my skills in quilting, or showcase them?

I use starch frequently to stabilize fabrics for cutting and piecing. It helps tame unruly fabrics and washes out of the finished quilt nicely.

And I make prototypes. My students get so tired of my telling them to audition the fabric, and the quilting that will be used on that fabric before piecing the quilt top. I have saved many a project from becoming a UFO because of pre-washing the fabric selection, layering it with the batt chosen for the quilt and the backing as well, and doing some quilting on it in the design planned for that fabric. How it handles in the machine, how the thread colors look on that choice, how it looks in then end all help me decide if I will use it or not.

(Photo: Here is a sample of a prototype: I quilted a small feather design on the fabric designated for my tote bag, tried out the thread colors, backgrounds, shading with pencils or ink, and then used this information on the real project.)

I have a stack of center squares from a log cabin quilt all with different quilting designs, including the one that was the final choice. It is obvious all the other designs were second best but I didn’t know that until I took the actual fabric and quilted it in the options.

As you gain experience the need for prototypes and extensive testing of your fabrics is decreased. Your knowledge base will fill that need.

Do I pre-wash fabrics? Yes, always. I like to know what could happen if and when the finished quilt is washed, and I like to control that outcome. So each fabric is hand washed separately in very hot water with a bit of quilt soap until no color runs, then washed in a load of fabrics in the washer, rinsed thoroughly, dried in the dryer on low, folded and used. They are washed right before cutting for the quilt so they are fresh and clean and don’t bother my allergies.

I’ve learned that sometimes it’s more important to use a fabric that I can control, that showcases my quilting well, that behaves in the finished quilt, that doesn’t run or bleed, and that looks wonderful than to fall for the next best thing or the pretty face in the new assortments for sale.

I’ve also learned not to worry if a fabric will “go” with the others in a quilt. If “you” love it, it will work just fine.

Fabric is the bedrock of quilting and it pays to take time to find and use what works best plus gives you the payoff in fabulousness that you need.

Fabric softens the rough edges of our lives, gives visual warmth as well as actual warmth, is a comfort in times of joy and hard times as well.

Keep quilting; your work gets better every day, plus you’ll use up some of your fabric library!

Diane
Visit Diane Gaudynski's website and blog, too. Can anyone ever get enough of her work? Don't forget her several books and DVDs and classes.
Photo: My cat Arnie in his youth would always find  fabrics, cut or uncut. He seemed to find the right colors to set off his handsome good looks too.)

Making Faces: Ginny Greaves discusses fabric choices

I'm a sucker for a furry face and this fabric portrait by Ginny Greaves of her mother's faithful companion brought tears to my eyes. Yes, she chose the right title for this creation : Unconditional.

Ginny's  work is all about love, just like this little guy. Love of fabric, love of creating and love of her subject are just a few samples of her dedication to her art. Please welcome Virginia 'Ginny' Greaves to Subversive Stitchers. She has some important techniques to share about fabric choices. -- Dawn

When I was a little girl, I used to make faces behind my mother’s back. If I didn’t like what she had been telling me, I would stick out my tongue and scrunch up my mouth and eyes and throw a nasty look at her back. But one day she caught my reflection in the china cabinet – and I never made faces at her again!

My mom is an impressionist painter, and throughout my childhood, I watched her make oil landscapes. She would make large canvases from scratch that filled the entire studio because she couldn’t buy the size she needed. If she didn’t know how to do something, she worked until she found a way.

Mom was a great influence on me and I owe her a lot, but when my children were young and I was looking for an outlet of expression, I couldn’t paint. It felt too much like my mom’s work. Luckily, I was given a sewing machine at that time and I fell in love with fabric. I realized that I had found my medium.

Thankfully I inherited Mom’s eye for color and her problem solving ability. Now I spend my days making faces and working out problems – all of it in fabric.

I don’t really remember what led me to make my first quilt from a photograph – but an old photograph of the dalmatians from my childhood surfaced in an antique secretary, so I gathered my fabrics and started.

Dalmatian Downs
(See photo)

It is always easier to look at value in black and white, and starting with black and white dogs gave me a gift I didn’t understand for some time. The understanding of value and then color are the basics of creating realism in any media – and it is as achievable in fabric as it is in any other media. We typically envision paintings when we think of illustrative work, but I’ve seen portraits made from trash artfully poised and photographed aerially from a crane. Anything that you can dream you can achieve.

There are many ways to construct the face, but over many mistakes, I have found that the hardest part isn’t the construction or even developing the initial pattern – it is choosing the right fabrics. Not only do you have to have value change between fabrics, but they have to be good jumps. Subtlety isn’t good enough. The good news is that you can remove many of your worries about pattern. I have used hand-dyed fabric, but it really isn’t necessary. You do have to look at fabric differently however.

Faces in Cloth IV

I’d like to say that I magically pick the right fabrics but the truth of the matter is that I use my camera. I line up the fabrics in value order that I think will work and look at them in black and white, either on my camera or on my computer. There are always fabrics that don’t work that I think should. Sometimes a subtle pattern like a batik will throw a fabric from one value into another. I used to trust my eyes and make adjustments when the piece was all fused together – but as much as I love the cutting and fusing, I don’t do anything now until I have the fabrics right – and I know if I have them right or not by looking at the value of the fabrics in black and white.

Interestingly, just like the pattern in the batik that shifted the value unexpectedly, I’ve found that some types of pattern can shift value in the direction I’m looking for. A black or blue pattern on top of the color I need can give the illusion of a value change.

I’ve also learned to look in unexpected places. I have bins where I store fabric by color, but I’ve learned to look beyond how I’ve organized – and if I need a particular color, to look in the complementary color bins for possible matches. Although a fabric may come home from the store as one color, it can look different when placed against other colors.

Chameleon 

This is best explained by my quilt Chameleon – which is essentially a color study. It is one simple profile shot with four values reproduced in six primary colors. These profiles are then mixed with each other so that the mixed profiles have two values of light from one color and two values of dark from another color. For the most part, the same fabrics used in the primary profiles could be repeated for the lightest and the darkest values of the mixed profiles, but the two middle values required adjustment and better understanding of how the values changed with the introduction of new fabrics.

But color matters some, right? My early portraits are monochromatic, but lately I’ve been making more realistic color choices.

Chameleon taught me that color is less important than value, but my latest series of faces has taught me that understanding of value within color families can contribute significantly to realistic portrayal.

The trick is to step back from your work and evaluate its impact before you invest too much time in it. It is easy to fix mistakes in the planning stages and much more complicated during construction. We work so close to our work – sometimes we need to step out onto the crane to see it properly (or use a reducing glass or even the computer).
Photo: Adelpho, a portrait of another Ginny.

BIO

Virginia a.k.a. Ginny lives with her husband and two children in Atlanta, GA. She is most often working in her studio but can be found occasionally roaming fabric stores. She is easily distracted by shiny objects, refuses to listen to the naysayers of fusibles, and sometimes runs with scissors. Her work can be seen on her website  and her in progress adventures are documented on her blog.

And here's Ginny's self-portrait monochromatic in purple.

Pink, the new lime green?

Kay Sorensen offered the theory of pink being the new lime green and started several quilters off on a new path of color enlightenment.

A black, white and pink challenge by host Leigh Ann Haygood offers a bouquet of unique responses to her challenge. Featured here is just one, by Jodi-Marie Horne of Leduc, Alberta, Canada. She used 100 percent commercial cotton fabric and rayon thread in her raw-edge fusible applique that is machine quilted.

Jodi-Marie said, "This experiment of transferring a fractal image to cloth was pure joy! It also showed me how little pink I have in my stash!"

I'm in the mood today to just search for examples of what art quilters are producing. Inspiration, perhaps, for all of those quilts I think I want to make, dream of making, but can't seem to get started.

My dear cousin gets an idea, jumps into it and produces the most exquisite creations whether it be crocheted, doll clothes, beading, or quilts. Today she wrote to say she found a new book at the library and is busily creating a quilt based upon the techniques in the book. I tend to look at the book, think 'Wow, what a great idea. I should make one." Then it is time to return the book and I move on to yet another 'what if!' idea.

So, while my cousin is cutting cloth and creating. I'm wandering the Internet finding so much inspiration. One exciting spot is the Art Quilt Network with links to its many members sites as well as galleries of various types of art quilts. Vita Marie Lovett takes us on an excursion of doors in her mixed media fabric creations, not to mention her extensive list of links to other exciting websites.

One of those links to Nancy Billings' Nancy B Designs and her vibrant quilts. They make you smile just to look at them! And the pillows. Her woven pillows inspire me to use up some of those odds and ends of fabric that I can't let go of, but still have not found a use for. Here she has included an embroidered insert.

Of course no surfing for art quilts could ever be complete without a trip to the Bryerpatch, Caryl Bryer Fallert's home page. I don't often understand exactly what the quilt artists attempt to say in their creations. I get bits and pieces of it. But, I think if anyone sees her 2001 quilt pictured here and remembers September 11, 2001, the message touches the viewer right to the heart.

I wonder if Caryl dreams in technicolor -- she certainly knows how to use color in her quilts!

From pink to technicolor, surf away. Of course on the Internet, surfing never ends. I hope you'll take a few moments -- hours -- days -- to check out the links from just this little foray into art quilts online.