Attending the Create Your Own Free-Form Quilt class was a life changing experience. Prior to its influence I had been leaning ever so slightly toward the world of art quilts. After spending five days immersed in free-form quilting my way of thinking changed drastically. My slight lean sent me tumbling head-over-heels in a new direction.
Free-form quilts is just as the words suggest, free from rigidity. No patterns, no specific measurements to achieve and dare I say, fabric cutting without a ruler. Gasp The only obstacle is your imagination or the ability to translate your vision into a fabric creation.
This shifting of the ground beneath my feet left me feeling an overwhelming sense of freedom. It was as if the chains of the quilt world had been released and I was seeing fabric in a whole new way.
As the wheels within my head began to spin I felt a jittery sense of excitement. The possibilities for my art expression exploded into a stream of ideas. From this new sense of direction came a craving to reconfigure my work space.
The first thing on my list was a design wall. Making free-form art requires frequent pauses for contemplation and auditioning. To accommodate this process it’s nice to have a vertical platform to display your progress. Another word for such a tool is a design wall.
I had purchased a large piece of foam insulation board several weeks ago. This foam board was earmarked to be transformed into a design wall. After cutting it down to a workable size, that was as far as I had gotten. There were so many other things that took precedence.
After having used a design wall all week at the retreat I felt a sense of urgency to bring my partially assembled design wall to completion. I slid the foam board away from the wall, unrolled my Warm and Natural batting, measured and cut a piece to size, taped it to the back of the foam board and leaned it back against the wall. My design wall was now ready to go. Here’s a section of my design wall with a few unfinished projects.
The next change to be made in my studio is the resorting and reorganizing of my fabrics. I’ll leave that adventure for another day.
Thanks so much for sharing your time. I appreciate your visit.
Cindy Anderson of In A Stitch Quilting
Oh what a fun way to throw out all that precision and just have fun with the fabric! I have been following Maria Shell for 5 years and admired her greatly. We got lucky this spring to have her come speak and teach at our guild in Delaware. She has this great artist mind and in her class, we put our rulers away, and just cut! It was very liberating. Check her blog out – https://talesofastitcher.com/ I can’t wait to see what you create. She is a long arm quilter to; and I think the beauty of her work is two fold – interesting piecing and interesting quilting! I think you would enjoy it. That said, I have so enjoyed your blog and love looking through your quilting stitch patterns for ideas. 🙂
I’m so glad you had a great time at the class. It’s never too late to learn something new. I will have to check out Maria’s blog. Thanks for the suggestion! I’m glad you find my posts to be of interest and the stitch patterns to be helpful. Thanks for being a faithful follower. I look forward to your next visit!
5 days of free form quilting, I am envious, looking to see more of what came from your retreat 🙂
Keep watching! It’s coming this month.
Free form…very cool. I like what what you have started with on your design wall. Such nice colors and I love the non pattern you have created.
Thank you Dawn! I’m really liking it too!