Natalie Barnes - A Modern Twist Create Quilts With a Colorful Spin

Cr ea te Quil ts wi th a C ol or fu l Sp i n

Natalie Barnes

WITH ANGELA WALTERS

This book is for the girls. They stuck together through thick and thin.

Grandma Stephanie taught me how to see only the beauty in every simple thing. Aunt Laura Marie showed me how to say yes to life. And my mother, Norma Rose, demonstrated the benefits of unwavering kindness. Beauty, enthusiasm, and kindness fill the days of my life; thank you for these lessons. They serve me well.

Authors grandmother Stephanie

A Modern Twist: Create Quilts with a Colorful Spin
2015 by Natalie Barnes with Angela Walters

Martingale
19021 120th Ave. NE, Ste. 102
Bothell, WA 98011-9511 USA
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eBook Edition: 2015

No part of this product may be reproduced in any form, unless otherwise stated, in which case reproduction is limited to the use of the purchaser. The written instructions, photographs, designs, projects, and patterns are intended for the personal, noncommercial use of the retail purchaser and are under federal copyright laws; they are not to be reproduced by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, including informational storage or retrieval systems, for commercial use. Permission is granted to photocopy patterns for the personal use of the retail purchaser. Attention teachers: Martingale encourages you to use this book for teaching, subject to the restrictions stated above.

The information in this book is presented in good faith, but no warranty is given nor results guaranteed. Since Martingale has no control over choice of materials or procedures, the company assumes no responsibility for the use of this information.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

eISBN: 978-1-60468-500-8
Original Source ISBN: 978-1-60468-499-5

SPECIAL THANKS Martingale thanks Elke and Don Spivey for generously alllowing the photography of this book to take place in their home.

If you take away any one thing from this book, I hope its that we are the sum of our parts. We truly stand shoulder to shoulder, and we are better for it. When you start to build your quilting toolbox, be sure you start with your quilting friends. Years ago I received a call from Martingale author Rose Hughes, just phoning to check in on me. Her timing, of course, was perfect. I had just returned from spreading my mothers ashes atop the Santa Rosa Mountains. What are you sewing? she asked. Nine patches, I answered. Why? and I replied, through my tears, Because I can. To this day, we still call to check on each other, 20 years later.

I am ever so thankful to the whole team at Martingale. They are an encouraging, positive bunch. From the initial introduction, to the final marketing of the books they publish, many hands touch a book. Thank you, Martingale, for believing in this title.

I am truly blessed to have a team of really good friends who believe in me. Thank you, Lisa and Katey, for sitting around the dining-room table and sewing with me. Thank you, Rose Hughes and Amy Ellis, for helping me sort out the process-driven aspects of writing a quilting book. And thank you to author Jill Marie Landis for reminding me to be true to my own voice. Thanks to my Hunter|Hughes business partner and good friend John, for his work with a red pen and for answering my question, I know youre not a quilter, but if you looked at all of this, do you think that you could make this project?

A great-big million thanks to Jane StPierre for being my stunt quilter, my human quilt math calculator, and my all-around good-counsel friend. This book would not have been possible without Jane. Youll see her name associated with many of the quilts, and her work is meticulous.

Another big thank-you goes to Angela Walters, not only for her contribution to this book, but for always coming to the table with solutions. Thank you for saying, Yes! before I even finish the sentence. This is the sense of community that will allow quilting to continue to grow and flourish. Finally, a big thank-you to all of you, the readers, the quilters, the sewists, the parents, the grandfolks! Whether we meet at a quilt show, or in a class, or we chat online, I am always happy to hear from you! What fun would all of this be if we couldnt share it?

BY ANGELA WALTERS

For much of my adult life, I worked in the field of commercial architecture and corporate interior design. I worked in the heart of the City of Angels, downtown Los Angeles, and on projects in most of the surrounding cities as well. I worked long hours for demanding clients and had precious little time for anything else. Quilting was my artistic outlet. I joined a quilt guild, took classes, and worked on a few committees. I became a part of a friendship group. The guild was a place to gather, tell stories, and find support for the work we wanted to accomplish.

Today, I am proud to say Im a designer of quilt patterns and the owner of my business, beyond the reef. My background in architecture and design, however, still plays an important role in the design of my quilts. The math is a little different, and the construction materials softer, but I still look for the order in the random and the modern in the design.

I believe it is the resurgence of interest in mid-century modern art and architecture that has fueled modern quilting, along with the desire to create anew. We have new heroes; it is a new time in our history. Its time to create a history of quilts that reflects our appreciation of the melding of old and new.

In the early 1980s, an artist in Ohio named Nancy Crow was taking the quilting world by storm with her new quilts. She worked primarily in solids, used a big quilting stitch, and her piecing was intuitive. By the 1990s, a woman named Gwen Marston was teaching us how to work in the liberated quiltmaking style. She introduced us to the utilitarian quilts of the scrap-basket era and taught us how to incorporate that process into our own quilt tops. In the mid-1990s, the world of home quilting was introduced to another studio artist, Denyse Schmidt. She was a former graphic designer turned quilter, who had studied at the Rhode Island School of Design. All of these quilters published books that gave us instructions for making their style of quilts. In 2005, we were exposed to the decades of work by Yoshiko Jinzenji from Japan and a variety of techniques that she used. Today the list of quilters who inspire us is continually growing.