Ricketson - Brave new quilts: 12 projects inspired by 20th-century art - from art nouveau to punk & pop

Dedication

For my familyI love you guysalways and forever.

Acknowledgments

Big giant kisses and hugs to my husband and best friend, Rob Shugghe keeps me on track, gives me space and time to create, and supports all my schemes and ideas. For this book in particular, he acted as technical assistant to my longarm quilting machine, studio helper in cutting strips of fabric, and illustrator in creating all the illustrations for this book (on top of taking on extra kid and cooking duties, toohe is a star!).

More kisses and more hugs to my two creative munchkins, Otilija and Orlandotheir spontaneous creativity keeps me energized. They offer advice on color and design and are incredibly understanding of my deadlines that involve my spending more time with my sewing machine than with them.

I also must thank my friend Julie MacMahon for acting as studio helper and design consultant; she is also the sewing star who sewed the Bright Future () quilt top. Thank you to my quilty neighbor Chris Hayes for letting me rummage in her fabric stash, and thank you to Moda for sending me a few fabric samples to play with and use in some of the quilts here and there.

Thanks to the team at Stash Books for believing in this book and to my agent, Courtney Miller-Callihan, for her continued advice and for helping to make it all happen. Lovely thanks to Mark Heriot for his help with the flat shots of the quilts. Big thanks to Lee Grant, who took the beautiful styled photographs; to Tania, Donna, and Jill, who lent us their homes; and to the beautiful Ella and Otilija, the handsome Orlando, and the patient pets who appear in the book.

Thank you heaps to Susan Boden for writing such a thoughtful foreword for this book and to all my blog readers, newsletter subscribers, Twitter followers, Facebook fans, Flickr groupies, and fellow bloggers and online crafty pals. You all raise me up and make me a better crafter, better writer, better photographer, and all-around better person. I would not have found crafting as a career if were not for you!

Foreword

No one single English word describes Kathreen Ricketson. Her art, her work, her life, her homethese all make her. But however important each word is, Kathreen cannot be reduced to a few English vowels and consonants. Part urban homesteader, part Web 2.0 creator, and fully herself, Kathreen always has her eye on experimentation and pushing the expression of her art. To describe her properly, we need a language that makes a single word from butting other words against each other. Stand back and you see how the fragments connect and morph to form a unified whole of complex, interacting parts. Gesamtkunstwerk is such a word and describes Kathreen and this new book, Brave New Quilts.

Formed from three German wordsGesamt (the whole), Kunst (fine art), and Werk (work)Gesamtkunstwerk literally means a total work of art. At first, the word was used to describe the supernatural and mystical nature of art that came as creators worked their abstract imagination and formed a piece of art. By the mid-twentieth centuryand especially in architecturethe word described a unity of creation where the architect controlled the building, interior, landscape, and furnishings. Nature, industry, and art, it was argued, should be expressed in a unified harmony. The architect should have the capacities of artist, technician, and artisan.

It is no coincidence that this book focuses on modern art movements as an imaginative springboard to Kathreens textiles. The German Bauhaus is the natural twentieth-century home for this very-twenty-first-century maker. Founded in 1919, the Bauhaus rose from the shards of World War I as a reaction to the romanticism and excessive ornament of the previous age. Instead, a new objectivity was encouraged, where function related to the designed form. The machine age had begun, and like the manager who controlled the new industrial production lines, the architect was the omnipotent creator, skilled in design, materials, and construction.

The quilts in this book draw on a breadth of modern art movements. Some, like Peacock Blue () free words just as punk and Dada did at opposite ends of the twentieth century. Like the movements that inspire this book, Kathreen wants you to free your inventiveness and embrace the integrity and clarity you have as a maker of a work of art.

Just as you think carefully about your materials and techniques, wondering how your hands and machines can work your imagination into reality, Kathreen is doing the same. If you strive to create a continuity between the many versions of yourself that modernity imposes, Kathreen is walking that road too. Just like the architects of the Bauhaus, Kathreen is designing, reflecting, and experimenting and, through her books, blog, and textiles, is in dialogue with us all.

And even if that long German word and the cultural history it carries seem a little off-putting, just imagine it in a different waya bold appliqu stretching across one of Kathreens quilts. The curves of the S, the vigor of the K, the harmony of the U. Gesamtkunstwerkthis word alone tells you the value of Brave New Quilts.

Dr. Susan Boden

Quilter, Whipup Fan, Landscape Architect

Canberra, Australia, July 2012

INTRO DUCTION

My own personal aesthetic is hard to pin downmodern/retro perhaps or contemporary/traditionaland that fusion of opposites is what I love when designing.

I am deeply attracted to the natural world, organic shapes, and interesting motifs, which is probably why I love midcentury textiles so much. At the same time I admire clean lines and unusual color combinations (punk and pop culture can teach us a lot about new ways of looking at color). I am interested in patternintersections of shapes, grids, and linear design (one of the reasons I love Russian constructivist fabrics). This book challenged me to bring these different ideas, elements, and artistic concepts together and to set them within the boundaries of a beautiful and cohesive design. Combing through all of my designs, you will notice a little spark of quirkiness as I show my love of the unusual, clever, and fun.

A major aspect of my quiltmaking style is to keep it simple. These are not hand-pieced, hand-appliqud quilts made by artisans and traditionalists; there is a place for those, but it is not in this book. Here I want to inspire you to design your own quilt, to be confident with color, not to be too precious about perfection, to take some design and color risks, and above all else to be proud of your work.

When I say dont be precious about perfection, I dont mean that you can be sloppy and lazy; you should always be trying to improve your skills and learning new ways of doing things. Of course, it is important to take pride in your work, but you shouldnt avoid trying something new just because you are afraid of failure. It is much better to aim for perfection and only get to 70 percent than to not try at all.

In this vein I think that beginner quilters with some sewing experience should be able to tackle all of the quilts in this book. If you have never sewn before, then youll need to first get some sewing experience under your belt. Get to know your sewing machine and your tools, and learn some sewing basics. Start with some simple sewing projects before making the quilts in this book. However, if you can sew a bag or a skirt or a cushion, I think you can sew a quilt. If you are an intermediate or even an advanced quilter, you will certainly have a lot fun making and remixing the designs in this book.