Tonight I am writing to you from Birmingham England, after spending the last couple days at the Festival of Quilts here. It is always fascinating to see how small and large trends develop and evolve, as I travel around the world photographing various quilt exhibits.
I’ve been saying for awhile that the place to watch for new trends is in between 2 established categories, and these days I am watching that fertile bubbling middle ground between Modern Quilts and Contemporary or Art Quilts. Also I have learned that some quilters here have different definitions for the words “Contemporary” verses “Art” quilts. It is different that my understanding of American Contemporary/Art quilts, so I will have to investigate this further!
On trend that cannot be denied is the super-dense machine quilting being used by Modern and Contemporary/Art quilters. It is being used to make incredibly unique trapunto shapes POP out of large areas of white negative space. It is being used in miniature quilts to create a fine texture as a background/contrast to blank/trapunto shapes.
This trend originally showed up in Modern Quilts, with lots of heavy parallel stitch lines, often being created with Ruler work. By the way, if you don’t know about the huge trend of Ruler Work (being used with longarm and freemotion machine quilting)…check it out online!
So now this trend of super-dense background quilting in negative space (often white negative space) is taking off in a new direction, which I will tell you about in the Midweek Creative Nudge on Wednesday. The super-dense miniature stippling is kind of mind-blowing… but when you see it, you will want to try it too! I took lots of photos so when I get back home I will work on posting these images so you can see what I am talking about.
sharing your Passion for Fabric…
Luana
