I have been in a somewhat creative rut since November or so, however I have recently discovered Stanley Whitney’s work. He had his work on display at Lisson Gallery in New York, and has a unique style where his pieces use large colored painted areas represented in rows.

Then one day, friends and I were talking about these larger scraps we had and how fun it would be to use those scraps to make quick scrappy quilts. These two events then merged in my head. As a result, I have been playing with a series of ideas.

The first was to take Stanley Whitney’s idea and explore the concept to fabric. I used the yellow fabric as anchor, to draw people in and follow it down. My favorite parts to this was introducing the strip fabric and also that interaction with the lighter blue scrap along the first row sashing and green triangle in the pink.

“Whitney” (~55″ x 60″)

The next one, I wanted to explore using all neutrals with a couple of splashes of color, in the sashing (yellow and the red linen print). I enjoyed the use of various fabric substrates in this one – linen, cottons, denim’s and flour sacks.

“Stanley” (~50″ x 55″)

This last and most recent piece was taking the original concept but making a piece truly me. The colors I had left over, were almost rainbow like. I liked keeping the like colors together and forming these blocks. I used a linen from Robert Kaufman as sashing and I really enjoyed how this worked within this piece.  These the blocks of color and sashing I think help the eye move around the piece.

The hardest part of this quilt was deciding on the middle, it definitely took several trials, photo’s and text to friends for opinions. In the end, I had some striped class samples I use in my Improvisation class that when placed up on the design wall, I immediately knew this was the center. The center in its very neutral but smaller piecing, centers the piece – couldn’t be happier.

“Study III” (~60″ x 70″)

These were such fun exercises and the tops came together in a day. I am out of my creative rut but not my finishing rut….these pieces still need quilting. Sigh. I will need to get this done soon though as these will be samples for my upcoming QuiltCon class “PIE003 Scrap Diving”. 

So, (the plug :-))…..if you are in a creative rut or have lots of larger scraps (say up to a fat eighth) or want to create a quick quilt – sign up for my class. The QuiltCon catalog is available here and registration starts end of June.