Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Brenda with a first go at 87

I love Amish quilts, and there's part of me that doesn't want to liberate any of them -- I think they already are. I love the strong geometrics, the dark, strong colours, the symmetry, and the beautiful handquilting designs. So what did I do? I picked the only quilt in the bunch that isn't technically Amish: Joseph's Coat No. 87 which is identified as a Mennonite quilt from 1900. I like the muted colours and the strong wide bars in this. And it's no secret I'm Mennonite, although probably from a different tradition than the maker of this quilt. I don't want to go into a theological discussion here, so suffice it to say Mennonites and Amish are first cousins of faith, and there would be family connections between them and so quiltmakers would have interacted.
So I've had a first go at it by sewing together strips from my scrap bin of solids. This measures about 18 inches square so far. I like the colours here, but it's not quite the mood I was going for.
So I put it on point against a solid background and put a border on it. I've always like the diamond in a square quilts, and this could be fun too. I wouldn't use the pink, but it was the biggest solid I had near at hand to put up on the design wall.
I'm still thinking about it, but I have an idea of using my words as stripes in low contrast fabric (that is an idea that liberates the liberated letters) and running them between the other stripes. I've been wanting to play with my solids for a long time, and I think I woiuld have fun with that idea.

8 comments:

Brenda said...

I'm commenting to get the follow-up comments.

Sara said...

Say, that's amazing! I don't think I would even identify it as Amish at all.

Kim said...

OOOOOh your creative juices are flowing.....fun to see where this takes you!

Happy sewing

Clare said...

Brenda - this is so amazing. I love the little glimpse of pink between the grey and black - top left. It is probably not intentional, but my eye is drawn to it.

Tonya Ricucci said...

cool. I love your idea for adding the letters. my favorite bit is the border with both black and red. glad to hear a different color will be used for the outer triangles! that light pink just isn't doing it for me.

YankeeQuilter said...

Love the color choices for the center stripes...

jmb_craftypickle said...

I really like this on-point. It is very lively with that red and black border. Keep it up!

debbi d-w said...

I love your combination of two ideas! Looking forward to seeing your color choice for the outer triangles - Do you have any more of that deep blue?