Taking your inspiration to quilt design

Inspiration to design

Now that I have several ideas for a design all inspired by my plein-air quilt idea I have started the process of turning inspiration into design. First I make some sketches of my general ideas and then further refine them into a composition. My inspiration for the design was narrowed down to making Trout the center of my composition. An integral part of my composition is to represent the bright cheerful colors I see throughout the mall in the store windows and also the people dressed up. Shown below are some of my sketches and an overall rough draft of what the finished composition may look like.

Ken at City Creek Mall SLC UT making design sketches 

Trout Quilt design work

Trout Quilt patterns

For this quilt I want a graphical design that is an abstract representation of the fish. (not very realistic at all) As you look at my fabric selections and the patterns therein I hope to have incorporated fabric patterns that abstractly represent fish characteristics. (please post a comment on your thoughts on this quilt and my design and workflow process)

Now with the primary composition in place I work on supporting designs that will include backgrounds (negative shapes) and the borders and border designs that may add to the composition. For this quilt I liked the idea of vintage fishing bobbers.

Vintage fishing float designs

( I have a very unique project to teach others how to build vintage bamboo fly rods with a high tech makeover. If you are interested the blog is http://bamboocompositerods.blogspot.com/ and believe it or not I am working on a fly rod built from bamboo and linen. )

For now take a look at the drawings and quilt top in progress.

Trout 1

Trout 2

Trout 3

Trout Quilt top in progress

Trout Quilt fabric selections

Top in progress

Top in progress

Color and fabric selection, PLEASE do not consider my preferences as perfect. I give thought to the elements I choose and will describe my reasoning but I hope my ideas will be useful to you as a guide only . There is really no right or wrong in my book only guiding principles and ideas.

When selecting fabric and colors I consider several things including,



Color combinations based on primary colors, secondary colors, complementary colors and split complementary color schemes.
Value, Light and dark. I look at how the value of colors will be combined on the main subject. How the value of the main subject will work with the supporting designs. The value of the colors used in in the design will help to create the contrast I want to achieve to make my design really pop.
Textural elements. This quilt top was made from cotton fabrics. The blue material surrounding the fish was a white fabric that I dyed so as to get the broken uneven color I wanted to represent the water.
Embellishments, just a few textural and colorful elements can add a whole lot to your design. I look for elements that will add a touch of color represented in other parts of the design.
Next and as a part of the final stage of putting the quilt sandwich together and quilting on one of my frames using a home sewing machine I make a map of the areas that will be machine quilted and the patterns used. The machine quilting patterns and threads used can add a lot to your finished composition and finished quilt.

Please comment on this Trout quilt, and please share with others who might be interested in following my design processes. I have several works in progress right now and am working diligently to get the work posted to this blog and also my Art Quilt Lab blog http://artquiltlab.blogspot.com/

Kind Regards! To all!

Plein Air Quilts

To incorporate the many demonstrations I want to share with others I have started a project to teach my concepts for designing quilts and for machine quilting with a home sewing machine.

As an artist the seasons all represent opportunities for exploring various quilt concepts. Summer though is my favorite for working outdoors. Generally the term "plein air" is associated with painting and drawing subjects outdoors. The term plein air or plein air painting is a phrase borrowed from the French equivalent meaning "open (in full). I think the phrase is applicable to designing quilts.
This post will begin to demonstrate my design process. I will cover some of the basics and for those wanting more in depth information I will expand on the basics in my Art Quilt Lab blog. http://artquiltlab.blogspot.com/


Getting started,
I like both nature type designs as well as graphical and geometric designs and thought of a project to combine all.
I took the train into downtown Salt Lake on a hot 100 degree day and went into the City Creek mall for a cool drink to take and enjoy at the fountain. While enjoying a cool off moment I thought of a quilt design that would combine nature and also represent many of the bright colors in the storefront windows.
The nature part, This particular mall has a portion of a stream (City Creek) running right through the mall. I have followed this stream from its origins in the mountains to the North East of the city. In the stream running through City Creek Canyon there are wild trout. The stream in the mall also has some Trout, I nicknamed them Mall Trout, (photos below)
The project in mind would be an art quilt with the trout graphically illustrated along with supporting designs

For this post I have included photos of the inspiration for my design and in subsequent posts will keep adding project work and design. The point I want to express in this post is to look for opportunities that inspire design. Generally one may not think of a large city mall as a possible place for inspiration to design a nature themed quilt but take a look around you and you may be surprised on what is awaiting for your design touch.

The photos shown below are what I began to draw my inspiration from. In the next post I will show my sketches and the design Ideas in progress.

City Creek Food Court

City Creek Fountain

City Creek Running through Mall

Mall Trout

New Quilt Frames 2016

Since the theme of this blog is machine quilting solutions this post will begin to catch up all of the projects that I have been working on over the last year.

With so many types of sewing machines and so much of a variety of quilts to be quilted I have been busy designing additional frames and options for machine quilting many types of quilts. Be it art quilts.

My favorite quilt frame is still my track and carriage design. Throughout the last several months I have been testing new designs for end connector roll tightening. The new connectors are a great improvement in providing a really strong anti roll feature to the rolls.

My new artist quilt frame is a variation of a design I sold several years ago. It is absolutely the most maneuverable quilt frame available anywhere at any cost. It moves freely in any direction in all directions. With the four bearing balls it just glides wherever you want it to. With this frame the sewing machine remains stationary and the frame moves. The drawback to this type of ream is that you need adequate table width to use. Some of the quilters who use this frame use three tables, two for the ends and one in the center for the machine. The center table for the machine rolls side to side whiles the end tables allow for the frame movement. While this may sound a bit complicated it is not. See illustration below and video

: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n68TtC6auT0

FINALLY a quilt frame option for long arm sewing machines!
What are the options for long arm machines? Either manipulate the quilt by hand or poses a huge track and carriage type machine, right?
Why I love this frame, It provides the most affordable and useable options for any type of quilt you will ever make.
It is perfect lap quilts, baby quilts and especially for art quilts. When designing and working with this frame I have realized this frame is the perfect option for long arm sewing machines where you may have room and space for a long arm machine but not room for the permanent setup of the large heavy carriage type frame required to support and operate a long arm sewing machine.

Best of all, with international shipping costs ever increasing this kit breaks down into a medium size USPS flat rate box and has reduced shipping costs to my quilter friends in the UK, Australia, Canada the Scandinavian countries Asia and South America the Middle east and anywhere the USPS ships. Within the US including Alaska and Hawaii the shipping cost is about $15.00 How cool is that?

So what else is new?
Besides designing and building quilt frames I am a professional artist. Some of my art is represented by the Southam gallery in Salt Lake City
http://www.southamgallery.com/lund.html

Throughout the last year I have been working on new ideas for teaching art quilting. I have taken my design ideas and printed full size the design outlines on fabric so you can apply your fabrics and infuse the basic design with your own creative talents. They are more than a pattern they are a good basis and starting point for your art or lap quilt.I have printed only small limited editions and hope you will try the new ideas. The cost for the designs printed on fabric are as minimal as I am able to provide.
The first design I am presenting is for a quilt celebrating Trout and fishing gear. Shown below is the beginning quilt demonstrating how I applied fabric and design elements to my quilt.
The new art quilt blog is almost ready to go so here is the link and please check it out in the next few weeks as I post the new art and design projects.
http://artquiltlab.blogspot.com/

Ultimately the long span in my updating this blog is apologized for but I think you will find the new work and Ideas for machine quilting worthwhile. Thank you so much for taking a look and sharing my efforts with others.
Kind Regards!
Ken