Fabric of the Year 2014

Fabric of the Year 2014 - Complete
Fabric of the Year 2014 – Complete

Materials

  • 100% cotton fabric
  • 100% cotton thread

Techniques

  • Machine pieced
  • Longarm quilted

Details:

  • Year: 2014-2015
  • Size: 63”x56”
  • Fabric: various

Quilted By:

  • Colleen Granger

 

Details

Two in one year is a lot, but I wanted to catch up and get back on track so I finished this quilt towards the end of 2015.

This quilt is the seventh in the series. This series started in 2008 with a comment by a friend. She mused about using new fabrics right away. Her comment made sense since fabric lines are discontinued so quickly. By using even a small piece of fabric right away, we would find out whether we loved the fabric and wanted to use more of it before the design or line was out of print and we had to pay an eBay seller a fortune to get the last bits we needed.

 

I always envisioned this series happening in tandem with my friend’s own FOTY project, but she made blocks from her new fabrics and she lost interest. I moved into another direction, which involves arranging patches I cut fabric patches throughout the year with the intention of making a gradation of color type design. The process is pretty much the same every year: decide on a patch shape, cut the patches throughout the year from new as well as fabric from my collection that turned out to be perfect for a particular project. The cutting is followed by a massive amount of arranging of patches, then sewing the piece together. This process is usually done in January of the following year with the goal of finishing before the end of that following year. For FOTY 2014, the January retreat was held in May 2015 and I wasn’t really ready to start piecing until August 2015. I find that working on it at home at a more leisurely pace works better for my process and I come out with a better piece. As with FOTY 2013, I had to completely rework the design after cutting all the pieces. I trimmed all the patches down as they wouldn’t all fit on the design wall. It seems stupid, but I can’t arrange this piece properly without using a design wall. I finally pieced it, for the most part, over the Labor Day 2015 weekend.

I worked on the piece with the lights in the middle again as I wanted to explore that arrangement further. I am very pleased with this addition to the series. Taking more time to arrange the gradation has its benefits. I continue to find the series a really good exercise in exploring the interplay of colors and geometric shapes.