Rosehip Seeds

I wanted to produce something in the American Art Deco style for this challenge. My original idea was to design a seed packet which fits in with my theme of fruits and seeds quite nicely. As I progressed though, it seems to have metamorphosed into a poster.

I created the final design in PaintShop Photo Pro X3 using vector graphics and then used this as a template for the piecing.

The rosehip was made separately using a reverse appliqué method and then attached to the background as a whole.

All the fabric except the black is hand dyed by me as per Helen Deighan’s method for graduated effects from her book Dyeing in Plastic Bags.  

The lettering was achieved by printing onto Artist Transfer Paper (ATP) and ironing this on.

I decided not to do lots of free machine embroidery on this piece as I wanted to keep it clean and simple.

This closeup shows how the yellow fabric has been left around the seeds during the process of  reverse appliqué

Crossing the line

I really like Art Deco - one of my assessment quilts for the City and Guilds was based on 1930s stained glass windows. To accommodate my theme of the year, fences, I checked out a lot of Art Deco inspired railings, bannisters and fences, but most of them relied heavily on symmetry. Somehow, they weren't going to express anything I felt in tune with. So I turned to travel posters, which have that graphic quality I am frequently drawn to explore.

This worked much better. I found an art deco style font, called Kaikoura. This was especially apt, as the town of Kaikoura is only about 2 hours drive from me. Kai means food, and koura means crayfish. The ocean is particularly deep, with the Hikurangi Trench just off shore. This brings a lot of seafood to the area, crayfish (a kind of lobster), paua (abalone) and other fish, which attract seals, dolphins, whales and orca. Kaikoura is a whale-watching town, with boats and planes going out any time the weather is good enough. It is also unusual in having mountains coming right down almost to the sea.

But Kaikoura also has a race course, which I think only has one race a year. I took a liberty here, as the racing in Kaikoura is harness racing,  not gallops.  But I like the simpler outlines of the horses and jockeys. Here I could incorporate my fences in an art deco setting. I was happy!

Yellow Tulips

Tulips are such elegant flowers, simple in shapes and in so many wonderful colours. And since Art Deco is very simplified, it was a perfect match for my personal challenge, tulips. Looking through images from my garden, I settled on the one I used in an earlier challenge, LOVE, and used it as a template for raw edge applique, with hand dyed cotton.
As a background, I used something that reminded me of radioes from the 1930s, freehand cut and pieced commersial fabrics, on top of pale green linen.
 

 The quilting in the background is simply straight lines, the tulips are free hand machinequilted, with French knots.

Spring Challenge - Art Deco

Spring Challenge

Art Deco

The next challenge is to make a quilt influenced by Art Deco.

The term Art Deco refers to a style that spanned the boom of the roaring 1920s and the bust of the Depression-ridden 1930s. It affected all forms of design, from the fine and decorative arts to fashion, film, photography, transport and product design. The name Art Deco was taken from Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratives et Industrials Modernes held in Paris in 1925.

I have a book on Art Deco Textiles which mentions...

Techniques: Cubism, Fauvism, Expressionism, Futurism, Modernism, Pochoir

Artists: Picasso, Braque, Matisse, Derain, Dufy, Kokoschka, Kandinsky, Beckmann, Nolde, Boccioni, Severini, Balla, Paul Iribe, Seguy, Benedictus, George Barbier, Clarice Cliff

Some interesting information is available on the Victoria & Albert Museum website at V&A - Art Deco

There is a lot of inspiration to be found on the web, just google ‘art deco’ or any of the other key words I have mentioned and check out all the images. I have inserted a selection into this post.

 Cubism, Charles Braque

Textile designs by Eugene Seguy

Expressionism, Franz Marc

Fauvism, Andre Derain

Futurism Fortunato Depero

Pochoir

Clarice Cliff

Chrysler building New York

The Queen Mary