Tag Archives: textiles

Art, meaningful and useful – Photo Wednesday

If you are in Duncan, on Vancouver Island, it’s a good idea to stop at the Quw’utsun’ Cultural Centre.

Knitting a Cowichan sweater. Quw’utsun’ Cultural Centre, Duncan, BC. Photo by Andrée Fredette

When we arrived, the man at the reception desk was knitting a classic Cowichan sweater.

Cowichan pole detail, Quw’utsun’ Cultural Centre, Duncan, BC. Photo by Andrée Fredette

Outside, some large totems are on display. They have been there a while, and the wood is showing some checking.

Cowichan pole detail. Quw’utsun’ Cultural Centre, Duncan, BC. Photo by Andrée Fredette

I think it adds to the symbolism. Beautiful, powerful work. Sorry I did not write down the name of the artist.

Quilt and Stitch… Some Ideas, Part 3

Here is the third part of my little series (Quilt and Stitch posts One, and Two) on how I approach the quilting or texturing (or embroidery) of a quilt.

Once I create a top, or quilt surface, I spend a lot of time staring at it, trying to decide how I will add the layer of texture. Where will the lines be most effective? Does it need a lot of texture? Or restraint?
Stitiching-quilting sample. Photo copyright Andrée Fredette

Those are hard decisions. It is sooooo easy to go overboard.

Machine embroidery and quilting. Photo © Andrée Fredette

Most of the time, I follow the pieced lines (where two colours meet, for example), and texture between the lines. But there are always exceptions. Rules that need breaking…

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And then, there is just the simple joy of meandering on a single piece of fabric, while changing thread colours. I have made discoveries that way! A line of black, for example (on the left, above), serves to highlight its light-coloured neighbour. Relief, in a way… On the right, above, I first placed a little pair of meandering lines in regular thread. Then I turned the piece over, and filled-in that little corridor with a “mossy stitch”, which is a tight figure-eight stitch, using a thick thread wound in my machine bobbin. Time consuming, but very zen.

Machine embroidery and quilting. Photo © Andrée Fredette

Finally, another little “sketch”, a practice piece where I tried out various ideas… You can see the evolution of lines, with their accessory and filler motifs.

Work in progress: texturing stage

My latest quilt is Jungle… and it’s a jungle of stitches out there! I have been putting in the hours for the past two weeks, both on this big one and the smaller companion quilt.

Work is progressing, which is good. I am adding a layer of much more intense texture into this piece than I had planned. Guess I am incorrigible.It’s going to be an interesting piece to look at, once I block it on my work wall.

In the meantime, here is a shot of the beast, in the process.
Work in progress, Jungle, quilt by Andrée Fredette, September 2013Much of the quilting is improvised and I draw inspiration from the colours and the shapes. This quilt is so graphic, with bright contrast, that I decided to stick with “stitching within the lines” rather than add another set of markings by going “off-road”. I think it would have been too chaotic.  Well, it’s how I feel at the moment and this may change in the next couple of days (smile). People who quilt will understand what I am talking about!

And to give a better idea of the texture, here is a picture of the back.
Back view, work in progress, quilt by Andrée Fredette, September 2013Still much more work to be done, one hour at a time. And of course, all the finishing.

Did I mention that I plan to finish this beast by Saturday? Better get going…