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Art Quilts Made Easy
• Bring out your inner artist-explore 10 approaches to designing art quilts with world-renowned teacher Katie Pasquini Masopust
• Techniques work for everyone, from beginner to advanced
Creating a gorgeous art quilt is well within your reach when you try Katie Pasquini Masopust's easy methods. Learn 10 different “game plans” for creating a quilt design, then turn your design into a pattern and complete your quilt. With such a variety of techniques to try, you're sure to find the right one for you.
Excerpt from the book:
I have been making quilts for 30 years! I started by following traditional quilt patterns. My first quilt was a wedding present for my sister, Terry, with her new initial embroidered in the center block. Half-square triangles surrounded the center block, creating border after border until the quilt was bed size. The fabrics were scraps from the dresses our mother had sewn for us. The quilting should really be called basting, but I got better with practice. I was thrilled with every step in the process. I made several more traditional quilts, and then opened a quilt shop, which I ran for almost 5 years. I taught quilting classes and made my quilts.
In 1978, I attended a quilting conference and heard Michael James speak about his original art quilts. The lightbulb went on for me. I was inspired and began designing my own quilts. I had been a painter before I became a quilter, so I relied on my art knowledge to create these new quilts. My first art quilts were called mandalas. They were designed like kaleidoscopic images, with wedge shapes radiating out from the center. I enjoyed making mandalas for four years. I then began to play with three-dimensional designs that I remembered from a mechanical drawing class I had taken in high school, creating very dimensional, structural quilts. After exploring those for five years I moved on to isometric perspective designs. These quilts are like baby-block patterns gone wild. What fun! I worked with the isometric grids for five years, and then we moved to New Mexico.
My quilt designs began reflecting the landscapes around me. I drew from photographs. I fractured the surface to allow for value and color changes and to give the designs structure. That led me to adding watercolors and transparencies to my designs. In 2002, I started working with abstract designs, the subject of this book.
I love taking painting classes. My paintings influence my quilts, and my quilts influence my paintings. It is a great give and take of ideas. Since 2002, I have been exploring different abstract design techniques. These techniques have developed into a two-day class on designing abstract quilts. I have guided students through these explorations, and many of their completed works are included in Design Explorations for the Creative Quilter. In this book, I explain some of my ideas for creating unique art quilts and suggest different methods you can use to develop ideas on your own. You can work through the book by completing the explorations in the order that I have presented them, or you can start with the ones that look most exciting to you. It doesn't matter what order you do them in. Once you have a design, follow my instructions as I explain how to turn it into an art quilt. |
Fiber artist Katie Pasquini Masopust has traveled throughout the world teaching contemporary quilt design. She has changed her style several times over the years. After starting with traditional works, she next turned to creating mandalas, followed by dimensional quilts. She then moved on to landscapes, fracturing them and adding transparencies and color washes. Her most recent work is based on her acrylic paintings. She feels that she has come full circle, returning to her beginnings as a painter, but painting now with fabric. Katie teaches in a relaxed but energizing style, passing her extensive knowledge of design and the art quilt on to her students. |
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Bring out your inner artist—explore 10 approaches to designing art quilts. Techniques work for everyone, beginner or advanced.
Creating a gorgeous art quilt is well within your reach when you try Katie Pasquini Masopust's easy methods. Learn 10 different "game plans" for creating a quilt design, then turn your design into a pattern and complete your quilt. With such a variety of techniques to try, you're sure to find the right one for you.
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