Earlier this week, during our
Quilt Market booth tour post, we showed you the "America" quilt. Today, designer Cynthia Wismann is here to tell us more about this amazing design, as well as share a few process shots from when she was making it.
Q. What fabrics did you
use in the quilt?
CW: I used the
Valor line [by Ro Gregg] and the
Painter’s Palette Solids. I think I used 47 different colors
from the solid line. I wanted to use as many as I could. The makeup of America
changes across the U.S. and I wanted to reflect that in a variety of colors.
Q. How did you come up
with idea for the quilt?
CW: Paintbrush
Studio asked me to make a quilt with the Valor collection. I talked about
design ideas with friends on a retreat and then with my daughter. I knew I wanted
one big American flag that looked like it was flowing, but I also wanted to
make the quilt look like America, like the people of America. I felt really
honored to do a Valor quilt in an election year. I wanted to show our true
colors—America from east to west. Houses, fire departments, high rises,
Hollywood, farmland, lakes...
Q. How did you design
this quilt?
CW: I I taped
pieces of butcher paper together and drew on it with pencil to create a
full-size sketch. I did a ton of erasing! I wasn’t sure how I would grid it out,
but my daughter suggested 15” squares, four across and four down.
I started drawing the red, white and blues. I wanted the
blue to look as though it was the beginning of the flag, with the flag
continuing on. For the red sections, I went with a fusion of all the different
reds in the Valor collection. I knew I wanted the houses to be in the center,
between the red and blue sections.
My daughter suggested the eagle watching over because the
eagle represents America. I chose a sturdy oak tree.
Q. Why is this quilt so
special to you?
CW: I I have
family members that were in the military and I feel like this quilt would be a
tribute to them. After 9/11, I worked with our guild to make little star quilts
to hang in the windows of families with service members. My mom said that my
grandma had done something similar during WWII. When I was asked to make a
quilt with the Valor prints, it touched my heart—it was a connection to my
grandmother.
Q. How did you construct
the quilt?
CW: The whole
quilt was fused onto cotton batting. I made my 15" squares where I could, in
the red and blue sections. I made the whole America scene separately, as one
big flowing piece that I added later. I built the tree and eagle separately and
added them last.
 |
| Seeing how the various pieces will look together |
The technique I used for the tree, eagle and stars is to
fuse the shapes to felt. Then I stitch on it. Both the tree and the eagle had a
fair amount of quilting. Then I freeform cut next to the stitch line so a
little bit of the felt shows and creates a slight dimensional look.
To finish the quilt, I fused the blocks and the row of
houses to the batting, and then I steamed it and fused the backing to the back
of the batting. It was really heavy to quilt!
I quilted it and then added the tree and the eagle. Last
were the stars. I just laid them out without a set pattern, just following the
sky.
The binding is a facing. It’s a nice finish, especially
since I wanted it to look like the flag was continuing on, rather than a
regular binding.
Q. What was your favorite
part of making this quilt?
CW: Designing
it. And then seeing that it all came together and worked—going from the
drawing, making sure the fabrics all worked, and seeing the end result. I think
it worked because the Valor collection all goes together so well.
Thanks, Cynthia, for telling us about your beautiful quilt!
Find more of Cynthia's work
here.
See the entire Valor collection
here.
See the entire Painter's Palette Solids collection
here.
