07 October 2012

Hurle Burle Marx Quilt

I've just finished a quilt using Thomas Knauer's new Frippery fabric collection for Andover fabrics. It's bright and a bit crazy.
The design of the quilt is inspired by the work of Brazilian landscape architect and artist Roberto Burle Marx. Burle Marx had a bold graphical style that is on display in private gardens and huge public spaces throughout Brazil and around the world, including the iconic paving design of the Copacabana Promenade in Rio de Janeiro.
Thomas had asked for an energetic modernism. Thomas's brief and the exuberant geometries of the fabric line made me think of modern tropical landscapes. (Confession: the list of things that make me think of modern tropical landscapes is long and varied.) And that led me back to Burle Marx. I love how his designs capture both a retro 50's space-age aesthetic and a 70's rainbow vibe.
The quilt is constructed in thirty 12" (finished) blocks, using squares and rectangles, and drunkard's path and point-to-point curve units in various sizes. The blue background uses an egg print in three Frippery color ways and three blue solids. The red background uses the Frippery tonal swirl in red and gold and two salmon/red solids. The circles feature Thomas's large-scale prints.
I quilted free motion on my domestic machine using three quilting patterns. The circles have a radiating asterisk pattern similar to the Frippery firework print. The two backgrounds use patterns from Angela Walters's Free Motion Quilting. I used "Flower Power" on the red background, and wavy lines & pebbles on the blue.
It was pretty easy to get the hang of the flower pattern, an the quilting went quickly. The lines and pebbles were trickier. It's hard to free-motion quilt continuous lines without getting jiggy and jaggy, and the pebbles just take a long time (and a lot of thread). The best thing about the pebbles is that they are great for hiding those jigs and jags. I quilted with Aurifil 50wt cotton thread in salmon and aqua. The thread was wonderful to work with, giving me even tension and only one or two thread breaks.
I used all the scraps from the front on the back, along with some larger pieces of the large-scale prints. I trimmed all the quarter-arc scraps from the drunkard's path units into triangles and made half-square triangle units.
The quilting shows beautifully on the back.
The binding is the red arc print from the collection (the blue arcs appear on both sides of the quilt). It's a double-fold bias binding, hand-finished on the back.
Frippey started showing up in online shops last week, including Fat Quarter Shop and Hawthorne Threads.

42 comments:

  1. Totally incredible....front and back. Beautiful work.

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  2. I so agree with Ramona! This is a beautiful quilt, and your quilting is perfect for it. I have Angela's book and took her on-line class---but am clearly not "there" yet! Thansk for sharing!

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  3. Wow. Just wow. I can't even take in what went into this! I love it so much!! It has to be my favorite quilt ever. Really.

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  4. This is amazing!! The design and quilting is over the top!! Good job!

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  5. Stunning stunning quilt Dan, I love your design, the quilting, the back, all of it! Great colour too. xo

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  6. It's amazing, as usual! I especially love the curved red-orange piece.

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  7. What a fabulous design to display the great fabric!! Your quilting is great!

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  8. I truly do love this quilt, and the gardens that you linked to as well. The back is also great fun, I like how the quilting works on it as well.

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  9. Oh, my! Mark me down for totally impressed. Again.

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  10. oh wow, this is gorgeous. i love your inspiration and the quilting is insane!

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  11. This just blows me away! It is so beautiful!

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  12. Wow, just amazing!! Your quilting is beautiful!!!

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  13. As always I am stunned by the variety and depth of your talents - to witness your constant re-imagineing of and execution of a theme or request into original work is a joy too watch! Thank you

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  14. This is really stunning Dan - I love it

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  15. Stunning, beautiful work. I adore the colour combination.

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  16. Just fantastic Dan. Love it all :-)

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  17. It is a true work of art in fabric - love it and am so inspired by your quilt.

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  18. The way you pulled from your inspiration is just amazing. Bravo Dan!

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  19. my gosh.
    you rock my world.
    yet again,
    you stud.

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  20. your quilt is gorgeous but the quilting is totally fabulous!!!!! hard to believe this was done on a domestic sewing machine. you totally rocked it.
    cindi

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  21. Wow. The movement, color and design are all amazing! You outdo yourself each time. Love this quilt!

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  22. Very spectacular, i love this:)))

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  23. I lovethefront as much as the back. This is fantastic, Dan!

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  24. This is the coolest quilt I have ever seen. Just amazing. You have such a gift of design, I'm in awe. Thanks for sharing your talents with us.

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  25. Completely fantastic - thanks for sharing your quilting process, too. It all works together beautifully.

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  26. Holy cow. I really can't get over how much I love this. And I love the back just as much! The quilting, the style, everything. It's fabulous!

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  27. Maravilhoso. As a Brazilian-American, I feel very proud. Obrigada.

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  28. Just found you on IG. You are a very talented artist!

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  29. just saw this quilt today on Thomas's blog - words fail me! totally and utterly awesome!!!!!! Unique, inspirational, a work of art, innovative just stunning! love it!

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  30. What a beautiful piece of art! Great job on the quilting!!

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