Doughty - Making Quilts with Kathy Doughty of Material Obsession

Executive Director: Carol Veillon

Original Texts: Kathy Doughty

Translation: Elisabeth Fuchs

Technical Editing and Proofreading: Batrice Airaud, Caroline Couturier, Elisabeth Fuchs, Sylvie Lefeuvre, Alison M. Schmidt, and Susan Nelsen

Art Director/Cover Designer: Kristy Zacharias

Book Designer: Katie McIntosh

Production Coordinator: Zinnia Heinzmann

Production Editor: Alice Mace Nakanishi

Photography: John Doughty

Many thanks to Carolyn Davis, Helena Foojij, and Jenny Stitt whose projects are shown on pages 14 and 15.

Introduction

Australia is known as the big brown country, and driving the narrow roads of the outback it is easy to understand why. However, upon closer inspection it is a country rich with intense color. The seemingly neutral background of the landscape creates the perfect backdrop for dynamic sun-drenched color. Trees, hills, mountains, and towns grow from the distance and then diminish. The landscape changes quickly from coastal city, to country town, to cattle station and the barren bush. Each country town has a set of shops that include a pub, a hairdresser, a hardware store, and in most cases, a craft shop! Out there, life exists in towns where peeling paint is the most popular building finish and the pace is slow. Strangers still nod and wave, and I had the most distinct feeling that time might not move too fast.

I have just returned from traveling this space with my husband, the photographer. We traveled light. No radio, no phone, and no Internet. As we left the driveway my son said, Well, youll have your thoughts! and he was right. Hours of driving past grasses blowing in the wind, days spent bumping on dirt roads, evenings in quiet towns that turned into days spent scouring the landscape for the right backgrounds meant time to think think about what we were doing and why.

The seemingly neutral background of the landscape creates the perfect backdrop for dynamic sun-drenched color.

I am a quilter. For me, quilting has always been about the promise of joy. From the stack of fabric waiting to be a quilt to the finished quilt itself, that is the motivating factor. Like all quilters, I am a composite of all the quilters who have come before me. My style is not easily defined except to say Ill try anything at least once. This book captures the last three years of quiltmaking for me and the essence of many quilters I have known who have affected me in one way or another.

Today it is hard to find something completely new. If we break down new now, it is generally a combination of many influences. In much the same way as a musician writes or performs a cover version of a song, we are taking elements found before our eyes and recreating them into something that is personal, expressive, and wonderfully individual, and in so doing, we become the joyful storytellers of our day.

Back to the road. Endless fields of the yellowest yellow are surrounded by dry grassy paddocks. Hours into our trip we remarked that in these open spaces youd never know that there were billions of people in the world. The city is impossible to imagine in contrast. Wildlife is everywhere. I am still fascinated by the movement of kangaroos as they appear on the side of the road like a spirit of the space in which they live. There are brilliantly designed birds in bright colors of electric blue, crimson red, vibrant green, or sparkling white feathers that appear in the powerful sunlight like moving rainbowscatching the light and showing their color and then disappearing back into the light. Time and time again I was happy to be hanging my colorful quilts in this landscape that was both quiet and loud at the same time. Other times I felt stiff and out of place as we climbed over or crawled under fences and into paddocks for just the right location.

The most important thing about Australia and the thing that affects quilters the most is the quality of the light. The light is intense as it brings subtle color to life and creates strong shadows and high contrast. Surrounded by the light as it changed from warm to cool throughout the days, I was fascinated by the effect this had on the quilts. The visual impact of the light helps us to see color more clearly and thus to use it to great effect.

I take my role as a quilting storyteller seriously. The process balances the need to create and the need to leave an impactful legacyone that defines my artistic direction as well as the time and space in which I live. When looking at traditional quilts, I often think about the quilters who came before me and imagine their lives. I am sure that they would envy our fabric options and tools.

Obviously quilts dont normally hang among the trees of the outback, but there is comfort in the natural settings found. As we hiked through the grasses, stepping over dropped branches and stones, it was hard not to stop and take photos of the colors and textures found at our feet. Each photo represents a color combination for a quilt to come as it sets the background for one that exists already. Joy in the now joy for later.

For example, we came across bee boxes in the middle of the bush that were perfect for Chance (). Many of the brightly colored quilts danced to life set against the earth tones of the outback.

Quilts become the joyful expression of ideas made new in anticipation of an awakening sense of familiarity and discovery at the same time. Color excites me, as does graphic impact and pattern. I look for ways of using graphic fabrics to create new patterns. For example, Marquee Diamonds () was inspired by a strip-pieced quilt but is made simple with Kaffe Fassetts Marquee stripes.

I found the truth of my quilts somewhere out there on the road. They combine the feeling of space in which I live and the influences of many quilters from yesterday and today. It is the sharing of the quilting spirit and the manifestation of this sharing that keep the desire to quilt alive in me. The voices of my quilting companions echo in my thoughts as I make quilts. I embrace their influence while striving to keep mine alive. I hope you find the same here and make your own joyful cover versions of these quilts, based on your personal choices in relation to color and design. Each quilt is but a starting point for a new quilt! Get busy, while I go wash the red dirt out of my toes.

Welcome!

I am but the sum of my partscompletely composed by the creative people with whom I gather to share the spirit of creativity. I am forever enriched by my love of quilting, a pastime that blends color and design into an ever-evolving experience. As a quilt shop owner for nearly a decade, I learn from each and every one of my staff, customers, and instructors just how important it is to respect the personal expression of quilting. We all have our own tastes and preferences and that is what makes it so interesting.