Art Quilt - Deco Study #2

I want to start posting more of my original design contemporary art quilts, like I did last week. I haven't really taken the time to do this in the past and I would really like to share some of my favorite pieces with you.  Today I am focusing on my small art quilt Deco Study #2.

I love the art deco period and wanted to play around with some of the design elements in my art quilts.  I decided to make a few small pieces before tackling a larger wall hanging to get some experience working with the motifs.  One of the results was this 12 inch x 12 inch art quilt.

The materials used in this art quilt include hand-dyed cottons, commercial cottons and silks. I started by collaging the design motifs onto a background of richly-colored hand-dyed cotton. Once I was satisfied with the design, I satin stitched the edges of each piece with rayon thread. The way I built up the circle collages gives the quilt top a slightly three-dimensional effect. The collaged top was layered with Warm and Natural cotton batting and a commercial cotton backing fabric and then free-motion machine quilted with rayon threads. (I don't own or use a "quilting machine".  All my quilting is done with my older Bernina® 1090 machine.)  Since I allowed the design elements to "break out" of the confines of the square quilt, I wanted to retain that organic feel and did a simple zigzag stitch around the edges to finish the piece.

Have you used fiber art in your home decorating?  If not, then you should definitely try it!  Art quilts can be used on the wall, framed or unframed, just like any other artwork. But art quilt have a tactile, textural quality that most other types of wall art don't have.  I use contemporary art quilts (some framed and some unframed) all over my house and they give that extra punch of color that your walls sometimes need. They also look super when grouped with other types of artwork.


One thing to note, however; fiber art should not be hung in direct sunlight unless protected by UV filtering glass.

I will devote a future blog post to different methods of displaying this unique and fun type of art.  Thanks for stopping by and if you have any questions about art quilts or how to display them, please leave me a comment.  I'll be sure to get back with an answer!

©Polkadot Possum (Cindy Harwood)