Welcome, welcome to the second stop on the City Quilts blog tour! I’m so happy you’ve come by to visit. Cheryl provided a fantastic perspective on the book in her post yesterday. Very insightful.
Long an admirer of Cherri House’s quilts, I was thrilled when I learned she had a book in the works. City Quilts takes its inspiration from the arresting geometrics so often found in cityscapes. Who doesn’t have their breath taken away by the drama of tall buildings and city skylines? While city vistas can often be boiled down to a repetition of simple shapes, Cherri adds the drama of solid colored fabric and the city comes alive again. The simplicity of many of the shapes makes the quilt patterns entirely approachable. And Cherri shares color wisdom that can raise a quilter’s color comfort level to new heights. I will keep this in mind when the heart palpitations start every time I peruse the Kona cotton solids color chart! Mind you, I’m not complaining about the freedom of choice that comes with 221 colors, but a quilter can get a little overwhelmed.
I asked Cherri some (very wordy) questions about her approach to quilting. Her thoughtful responses follow.
1. I love your advice on making traditional quilt patterns contemporary, especially the advice to trying something unexpected or quirky. This idea comes up again when you talk about choosing color — “the more the better.” Do you have any advice on how to tell if you’ve “over-quirkified” or overdone it in selecting fabrics or colors for your quilt? In practical terms, how long do you let a color arrangement or design “rest” on your design wall before knowing you are satisfied and ready to start sewing?
Love that ‘over-quirkified’…you’ve coined a new phrase. In terms of adding something quirky – it should still be a surprise – something unexpected. If you see it in every other block or row; then it becomes part of the pattern. It should be a little gift or surprise for taking the time to examine the whole quilt. The ‘Where’s Waldo of quilting’! When I talk about adding more color, and being brave about color; it is generally within the context of the color family you are working in. In City Green for example – I have no idea how many greens, blues, and purples are in there; but it works because they are all neighbors on the color wheel. It’s easier to work with 30 blue/greens, than with six.
Talk about turning lemons into lemonade – I have terrible vision, and can hardly function without my contacts, but this works in my favor with quilting. When I have a quilt on my design wall, I’m able to fix any color/value issues as soon as I take off my contacts. I can “see” the problems and fix them, while I can’t see…crazy, right? So, I work all day, fix the issues at night, then the next day I’m ready to go again.
2. The bold graphic punch of traditional Amish quilts drew me into quilting, and I see that they have also inspired you. I sometimes think that traditional blocks made up in solid colors really get to the essence of quilting — the solids amplify the quilt or block design by cutting through the “noise” that print and texture can make. (Mind you, I am quilter who also loves the “noise.”) I see that it was an exhibit of Amish quilts at the Houston International Quilt Festival that encouraged your use of solid colors. How long ago was that and can you tell us anything more about your transition to solids — did you immediately weed tonal prints from your stash?? 🙂
Let me just start by saying I have a hard time weeding anything from my stash! I’m horrible, I think, “but I might need it, I really should hang on to it…just in case.” It was probably about six or seven years ago that I saw those Amish quilts at Festival. No one seemed to be using solids at the time. EVERYTHING was fossil ferns – I loved them! I tried – not very successfully to do some wholecloth solid quilts with applique (which I suck at), then I tried to incorporate solids into some pieced blocks, but none of it was really working. I was trying to create the same quilts as I always had, but with different fabrics, and I wasn’t succeeding. Tonal fabrics and busy prints can hide lots of sins; so to speak, and with solids you have nothing to hide behind. The work has to be able to stand on its own, so in a sense, I had to start over, and learn to work differently.
3. Finally, with all of the solid colors and wonderful advice on using color available to us today, how in the heck do you begin the daunting task of choosing a color scheme for a project? For example, do you get into a violet mood and go from there? As an aside, is this something that your new pattern series “Can’t go wrong color” will help people with?
For me, developing a quilt can happen in a few ways – the easiest is when I see it in my head, and I only have to work out the logistics. Another way is finding fabric that I love, and designing a quilt around it. With City News I knew that I wanted to make a red/black/white quilt – so the colors came first, everything else followed. I have a tendency to use the same colors over and over again, so as an exercise I challenge myself to design something in a color outside of my normal palette.
‘Can’t go wrong color’ was born out a need that many quilters have in regards to color confidence. They want and desire to create contemporary works of art, but are truly stuck when it comes to color and fabric. By tightly controlling the value range, through providing the exact colors needed, quilters can overcome this anxiety, and produce quilts that are contemporary and unique.
Thank you so much, Cherri! I adore the book and look forward to your company when I decide which quilt I want to make first!
All righty then, you’ve stuck around for the giveaway, right?
The prizes are:
From the fine folks at C&T Publishing, a copy of City Quilts.
From the fine folks at Robert Kaufman, a fat quarter bundle of Kona Cotton Solids.
Last, but certainly not least, two $20 gift certificates courtesy of the lovely Kathy at Pink Chalk Fabrics.
To be entered in the giveaway drawing, leave one comment on this post by midnight EST on July 24, 2010.
For additional chances to win, don’t forget to visit the other stops on the City Quilts blog tour:
July 12th – Cheryl Arkison
July 13th – You Are Here 🙂
July 14th – Stefanie Roman
July 15th – Pat Sloan
July 16th – Spool
July 17th – Allie/Robert Kaufman
July 18th – John/Fat Quarterly
July 19th – Emily Cier
July 20th – Sarah/Josh Sewer Sewist
July 21st – Julie / Jaybird
July 22nd – Vickie Eapen
July 23rd – Jessica Levitt
July 24th – Kim Kight
Thanks again for stopping by!
Mrs. Schmenkman Quilts 
