Creative Nudge – Springboard for Creativity

Tonight I am writing to you
from my hotel in Las Vegas! I am here for 2 days at a textile show, and I
just finished up ordering lots of bodacious fabrics that are shipping
this summer.

After immersing myself in the spare design aesthetics of the Modern
Quilt movement at QuiltCon a couple weeks ago, I found myself still very
eager to dive into several very opulent gilded fabric collections that
are inspired by textile designs of the 18th and 19th centuries.

The more I look at fabric, the more I learn about color theory and
design.
You can look at surface design every day of your life and still learn
more by going to museums, looking at design and history books, and just
walking though a fabric or department store to take in all the varieties
of design interpretations.
I just never get tired of looking at color and design!

What is most exciting to me is how we can still come up with new and
interesting textile designs, simply by re-combining old motifs in new
colors, re-scaling (making larger or smaller), and especially by
juxtaposing with other textiles.

I am eager to share with you the many new versions of yarn-dyes,
including multi-color chambrays.
(also known as shot cottons) There is also a whole new crop of classic
plaids that have been re- imagined, re-colored, re-scaled and then
combined in quilts in imaginative ways.
I am also loving fine quality prints that mimic ikat plaids with
bi-color twist yarns.
You have to be a pretty serious fabric head to realise the enormity of
these re-imagined classics….
they are like a visual punch line…and they make me giggle.

As new technical innovations begin to trickle into the overseas
factories, and designers learn how to exploit these new design
opportunities, we will see more fabrics that catch our eye and look
"different" …
but we can't quite explain why.

******************************

We had a very sad weekend.
Our beloved sheltie had a health emergency over the weekend, and I had
to make the painful decision to euthanise on Sunday morning before I
left on this trip Monday morning.
We are in the habit of letting her out first thing in the morning, and
it will take awhile to let go of all our doggie habits.
Cherry was born on Valentines, and left us on St Patrick's Day.

Tuesday morning at 7:02 am EDT (4:02 PDT) is the exact moment of the
Vernal Equinox – when the sun passes over the Equator and Spring begins
in the Northern Hemisphere.
(…and Fall begins in the Southern Hemisphere) I am more likely to make
and keep Spring Equinox resolutions, than New Year resolutions, so I am
using the impetus of Spring for a Creative "To Do" list that will keep
me focused for the rest of the year.

How does Springtime inspire your creative process?

** This image above is a detail of the quilt "Life" by Yoshiko Katagiri from the Tokyo Quilt Festival in January 2013.