Quilts with African fabric

This winter, I was driven to make quilts out of African fabrics. I really wanted to re-invision traditional patterns. I had a lot of African fabric laying around from my dancing days (sigh). I was fascinated to see how my old stand-bys like the eight pointed star, chinese coins, and flying geese would look. The results have been mixed, I'm still experimenting.

Eight Pointed Star Quilt with African Fabric

African Chinese Coins Quilt with Indigo

Flying Geese Quilt with African Fabric

Log Cabin Quilt with African Fabric

One Square Quilt with African Fabric

Blue Jeans Pocket Quilts

The inspiration to make quilts out of jeans pockets came from this quilt by an African American quilter in Michigan. fell instantly in love with it. It is the inspiration for my first my jeans pocket quilt, which doesn't have the same funk. I think this quilter doesn't measure or use a rotarty cutter so that her strips conform to the natural shapes of the material. In the other quilts I explore more traditional patterns using jeans pockets as the nucleus.

Jeans Pocket Eight Pointed Star quilt

log cabin quilt with jeans pockets

Liberated Star Quilt

I'm pretty excited about these quilts because they are a beautiful, organic, asymmetrical spin on an eight pointed star pattern, which is one of my favorites. More and more I am turning away from following quilting patterns, and using strict geometric shapes. I am increasingly inspired by the Quilts of Gee's Bend and quilts like Sherri Lynn Wood's Color Study and Passage Quilts I am called more towards making quilts that are more spontaneous and improvisational, where both the form and color flow from my imagination.

Ayan's Quilt

Ayan's quilt is based on a half square log cabin pattern. It is based upon a quilt from The Quilts of Gee's Bend book. It is made from her father's dress shirts (most of which he gave up willingly). I have mixed feelings about how muted the colors are and I'd like to try it again with darker colors but this one is special because the fabric was her father's.

Ubiquitous baby on a quilt photo.

Simplex Star Quilt with Batiks

Soley's Quilt

Soley's quilt is finally finished, just as she is turning two. As they say, the shoemakers children go barefoot. I had been dreaming of this quilt ever since I was pregnant with her. I knew it had to be bright and have some kind of sun motif because of her name. Here is what I came up with. 

Peach String Quilt using Amy Butler Fabric

I adore Amy Butler Fabrics but I struggle to find a pattern that works. I'm not sold on this one, hopefully someone else will be.

Strip Around the World or House Top Quilt

I made this quilt for my friend Vanessa's daughter Nia. It is based off of the Strip Around the World pattern by Carol Morrissey.

Snails Trails Quilt for Lauren

This baby quilt was meant for my niece Lauren, who is big girl now, and thus will need a bigger quilt. (Perhaps I can add another row to each side). It is based on the "snails trails" pattern and uses batiks.

Pink and Orange Batik quilts for Ayanna's twins