Wouna le Roux

For as long as I can remember I’ve been making patchwork blankets for myself, family and friends. It consisted mostly of pieces of off-cut fabric, patterned in blocks or lines, machine stitched together and sown onto a backing, usually with an old worn out blanket sandwiched between the two outer layers, and finished off around the edges with a binding. Attaching the three layers was also done by machine, using a big criss-cross pattern. Nothing fancy, but rather functional – blankets that were meant to be used, not just laid out on beds or hung on the wall for decor.

Traditional quilting has never been my ‘thing’, or so I thought. Perhaps it is because my idea of what a quilt is, wasn’t necessarily something that gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. Britannica defines quilting as a ‘sewing technique in which two layers of fabric, usually with an insulating interior layer, are sewn together with multiple rows of stitching. It has long been used for clothing in China, the Middle East, North Africa, and the colder areas of Europe but is now primarily associated with the construction of bedcovers and wall hangings.’

I was never fond of the formal patterns or the multitude of quilt stitches (multiple rows) to join the three layers. To me it seemed as if all the stitches just made the quilt stiff and unfriendly. That is of course just my opinion. Perhaps the symmetry and ‘order’, and the patterns and finesse of quilting was the bit that didn’t appeal to me? Who knows, maybe I just never looked in the right places. But when you start to dig deeper, you find the most gorgeous contemporary quilts, ones that are really pieces of art, with no shortage of stitches!

You can’t slam something if you’ve never tried it before, so with something more contemporary in mind, I’m attempting to create a slow-stitched quilt that might be going against all traditional rules. I am starting at one point, adding pieces of fabric in any shape or form, and quilting it as I please or where the mood takes me. Hopefully it will look as free and random as I see it in my minds eye. I am a bit of a perfectionist, or perhaps just a bit pedantic, so I will have to force myself to not necessarily try and make every stitch perfect, or space my rows evenly.

I am enjoying the process so far, even if it means creating something that might end up being on the ‘stiff’ side. That is not important to me right now. I just want to hand craft a contemporary, abstract quilt that hopefully resembles a piece of art.