Abstract Quilt Exploration 🌱

Quilting has been stuck in a little thought loop in my mind. And now that I have a sewing machine, it’s been something I’ve been slowly honing in on as I make my way through projects. [See: February Favorites 🫘]

This week in the studio, I’m playing around with abstract quilting. I went down a rabbit hole of discovery before finally deciding I couldn’t wait to start sewing something, pattern or not.

Quilting from Intuition ✦

Let’s be clear, I’m an absolute beginner. Learning how to make perfect log cabins and flying geese sounds way too intimidating to me right now. So just cutting up simple squares— and maybe who knows: some rectangles— sounds way more my speed.

Sewing is actually engineering, is what I’ve realized. And probably the reason why I’ve put off learning this skill for so long. So to get a feel for what’s happening when I sew a straight line together, I’m just letting myself play with these shapes & sewing in my own wandering way.

It’s taken me several nine-patches just to remember to sew the fabric right sides together.

Main Inspirations ✦

I wouldn’t be playing around with abstract quilting if it weren’t for the inspiration that showed up on my radar recently:

I found this quilter artist kaylee jo likes to sew, she led me to discover Heidi Parkes, from there my Pinterest algorithm brought me numerous kavand quilts made by the Siddi, and examples of big stitch quilting from artist Victoria Gertenbach.

Seeing their work able to be such personal canvases for storytelling + the use of using-what-you-have-type of scraps really appealed to me. Like another form of memory keeping. [See: December Favorites 🫘]

Exploring the Possibilities ✦

This is truly an exercise in creative exploration. My goals are to:

• have fun piecing together scraps I already have (no pattern)
• actually make a quilt
• become more confident in using my sewing machine

The practical side of this project is that I wanted to upcycle an old flannel throw blanket I’ve had for a while. It’s seen better days and is in major need of a refresh. This blanket is made up of two warm layers that have been blanket stitched together and loosely fused/glued(?) throughout the piece to keep it together.

To maximize the refresh and make it easier on my hand during quilting, I’m going to separate these layers to create two individual quilted throw blankets.

Sculpting the Quilt ✦

This is where the first piece is at. I’ve been really into cutting up my scraps into little checker pieces / nine-patch squares.

It has felt so freeing to just chop up scrap fabric and place it wherever I feel. I’m learning to “extend” sections that I cut too short by sewing on another scrap of that color. It’s almost like sculpting. I can cut away pieces I don’t like, or add new sections according to what I feel needs extra oomph.

The hardest part so far has been realizing that to piece together sections, I need to make perfect squares/rectangles of sections, which means deciding where to chop off a scrap that’s bleeding over into another section. For some reason I thought you could sew together patchwork in a zigzag way. But I now realize that look comes mostly from appliquéing fabric on top of a base layer. Maybe I’ll do more of that technique on the second quilt I make.

For now, I’m just cutting & sewing & puzzling together this first one. It’s a little overwhelming to look at, but I’m just enjoying the process of exploring how to make this without a pattern.

I’ll update when I have more. 🤎

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