In my quilting career, I have tried many different techniques and methods, starting with templates and paper piecing in the late 80’s.

It is always interesting to see the development of a person’s style, quilters have so many options and it can be overwhelming sometimes.

Do you make a quilt with multiple fabrics, or just choose one or two.

Do you use bright, neutral, a co-ordinated range of fabrics, or do you recycle fabric?

Do you make quick pieced quilts or appliqué quilts?  Do you embellish?  Wall quilts or bed?

Do you spend many hours pondering over your choices – or do you choose your colours and textures quickly and instinctively, and get on with it?

Do you do a bit of everything?

Then maybe you do not yet have a style that you can call your own.

It is perfectly fine to travel down the road of following other peoples’choices in fabric and techniques.

I have a friend, Janice, who spends many hours making quilts to give away for charity.  Janice researches her quick piecing techniques from places like Missouri Quilts (https://www.missouriquiltco.com/   and click on Tutorials).

This has now become Janice’s style, in that she has made so many of these quilts that she has now become expert enough to expand on the techniques and share them with her friends.  That is not to say that Janice has not made other quilts, her raspberry and cream appliqué quilt is a masterpiece which took many months of painstaking work.

Thinking about all the choices, making a list of styles and techniques of your recent work could be helpful.  Then think about what direction you would like to go, and write that down too.

Maybe you want to make original quilts or art quilts, but don’t think you have the artistic skill.  This is where a small art group could be helpful.

An art group started a year ago by my friend Marilyn, has been so helpful in learning and sharing new ideas and techniques.  There are only six of us, and we meet monthly to try something different, that we might never do on our own.  Some of the things we have tested are paper cloth, gelli printing, transfer printing, sun printing, thread painting, and working with sheer fabric.  One of us researches the technique and we spend an afternoon together working on it.  Over the year, our confidence and skill has expanded and there is definitely a new courage among our members, to try new ideas for challenges and art quilts.

Perhaps you would like to make prize winning quilts in a traditional style?  See as many quilts like this “in the flesh” as you can.  Up close and personal means you get to really study the finish and perfection of each stitch, which is necessary to win awards.  Try to share time with someone who is making top rated quilts, and learn the standards which she sets for herself.  Read everything you can find about judges criteria, and brush up on your skills for binding, free machining, piecing and embellishing, so that you can set your own standards.

My own personal style has changed from my early pieced and handmade quilts.  Quite soon I discovered that I am not a “piecer”, as I lack the patience and skill to make perfectly placed seams.  I prefer the freedom of appliqué, not that I allow my work to be slipshod unless I have given myself permission to make an art quilt which has frayed bits on it.  That comes hard but is liberating too!

Flower quilts, for which I am known, developed over the years.

My first quilt in the overgrown flower range was made for the first Queenstown Symposium, and was selected to tour.  Then it was purchased

for a collection, which was a huge boost to moral.

Following on from that, I worked out a technique where flowers and buds could be machine embroidered separate to the background, to avoid distortion to the background.  These could then be stitched to the background as if in a flower arrangement, allowing the leaves and stems to travel underneath for a more natural look.

Each new quilt allowed me to work out new ideas, and I have revelled in teaching my techniques and flower quilts to students over the last few years.

It is rewarding, to say the least, to see students arriving with different fabrics, and going home with a nearly completed quilt.  I take great pleasure in learning from my students, seeing the colours they choose and getting feedback from them, so that I can make their learning experience easier.

 

So, is my style flower quilts?

Maybe, but of course, nothing stays the same!

I am becoming interested in textiles from other cultures and times, and am working on some new ideas for teaching these techniques.

In these quilts I use lots of embellishing, (some of that art quilt group influence here!) and different fabric colours and textures from the flower quilts.

 

Here is a taste of my new style, my new Medieval Journeys quilt, which I will be teaching at the Manawatu Symposium in January 2105,

http://quiltsymposium.co.nz/index.aspx

Watch this space!

Tell us about your quilting journey.  How have you learned new techniques.  How did you develop a style of your own?