Vestment Autumn

In 2003 I came to art quilting with a strong art background, a career in art photography, a lot of sewing experience and a love of textiles. My introduction to the art quilt world was through a friend already engaged in the process. Looking at her coffee table size book, The Art Quilt, inspired me to think about how I could use the quilting stitch to create art. With only a couple of weeks practicing free motion quilting, I embarked on a series of three very difficult quilts of which Vestment Autumn was the third.

Instead of quilt top, batting and backing, I layered 6-8 layers of various translucent fabrics including polyester and nylon chiffons and organzas and a metallic gold mesh. In this quilt I wanted to create a feeling of opulence with reference to a garment and have the theme for the proposed four part series be the Seasons.

The idea was to use reverse appliqu� to cut down through the layers to various levels exposing some fabrics while letting others reflect through the layers. A soft non-woven fabric cartoon of the design constituted the top layer and all layers were initially held together with basting. When ready to stitch a particular area, I cut out the paper, basted that area and stitched. The thread was metallic thread. The challenges for this novice quilter were the metallic thread and the size, slipperiness and cumbersomeness of the quilt sandwich.

The two quilts of similar process completed before Vestment Autumn referenced realistic objects. Vestment Autumn was a departure in that it was moving from realism to abstraction which became my later point of focus. This shift also reflected a similar change in direction in the larger art quilt world.

As far as the proposed series went, Vestment Winter was never finished and Spring and Summer never were started.