Many destinations

"A successful quilt doesn't just rely on practical or technical skills - ideas are equally important."

"It's not enough to know a lot of different techniques or to have a huge horde of products. The important thing is to use them thoughtfully and in a way that is appropriate to the materials, the inspiration and the desired visual effect."

"We believe that there are many destinations and, indeed, many ways to arrive at the same destination . . . Your path may take you down many fascinating diversions from the main route. You might even find yourself taking a completely unpredicted detour never to return to the original road. What matters is not where you end up or how you got there, but that you started out in the first place . . . the information and examples we provide are meant to encourage you to find your own inspiration and to follow your own creative path."

- excerpted from the Introduction of The Painted Quilt by Linda and Laura Kemshall

Morpheus's Garden*
Laura Kemshall
1 meter x 1 meter
2001

I am reading The Painted Quilt: Paint and Print Techniques for Color on Quilts by Linda and Laura Kemshall. This excellent book includes discussions about inspiration, design, technique and process, as well as page after page of beautiful, detailed, colour photographs. Also included, are examples of the authors' own finished quilts along with explanations of how they proceeded from idea, through design and execution for a number of works. I find it interesting that two years ago, when I started to make quilts, I initially felt very intimidated by the possibility of dyeing fabric or attempting other surface design techniques. Now, I don't see any reason to limit myself in this regard. I love the idea of colouring and painting fabric and quilts using print paste with fabric dyes, acrylic paint, paint sticks or any other type of pigment to mark on fabric, and I plan on learning to do more of it in the coming year. I've decided to make twelve journal quilts in 2008, one per month, in conjunction with SharonB's Take it Further challenge, and hope to use that project as a testbed to experiment with a number of the surface design techniques explained in the Kemshall's book.

*Image is used with permission of the artist.