Red Quilts

I belong to a wonderful group of art quilters called the Scrapbag Quilt Artists. We meet weekly in member's homes to share inspiration, assist with technical challenges and support each other, both creatively and in our personal lives.

Every year we have a challenge and then exhibit the results at a local library. This year's challenge is "Seeing Red". We were to create a 24 inch square piece interpreting the word in any way we wanted, but with the stipulation that the quilt be at least 50 % red. These are my two offerings. The first, China Memories, uses photo transfers from my trip to China two years ago. I used many different red fabrics----silk Dupioni, velveteen, brocades, Pane´velvet, and a commercial print with Chinese characters. I used Shiva Paint Sticks for the stencils, then free-motioned quilted around them. The finishing touch was applying the tassels that I purchased in China. In China red has many positive connotations, such as courage, loyalty, honor, success, fame, fortune, fertility, happiness, passion, and summer. It is also associated with weddings, where the bride traditionally wears red. I saw a lot of red in China.

My second quilt, Poppies, was inspired by a drive through the area outside of Portland , OR where flowers are grown for seeds. You can see huge fields that appear to be one solid color from a distance. I tried to translate that feeling into fabric. I used fused cotton and lots and lots of thread work for the poppies. The poppy in the frame is three dimensional.

We will hang our show this Friday, so stay tuned for more pictures. In the meantime, you can see two more here on Lynn's blog.