Welcome to the November Edition of the Art With Fabric Blog Hop!

I'm proud to kick off the November 2018 Edition of the Art With Fabric Blog Hop, organized by Alida of Tweety Loves Fabric!

The theme this time is "My Favorite Color Is..."  Well, easy question for me to answer.  I love love love red, in all of its tints and tones.  So my inspiration piece is "Light Red Over Black (1957)" by one of my favorite artists, Mark Rothko.

Rothko was a complicated man.  His paintings evolved over the years from modernist to surrealist to his signature style, the multiform.  Layers of color laid out in simple shapes, minimalistic yet strangely complex.  I love them.

My piece, however, turned out to be less than minimalistic.  I started with a simple palette of multiple shades of red and red-violet and black.   And I started with a simple triangle:

All of the fabrics in this quilt, by the way, were hand dyed by me.  Except for the black.

I built the triangles into units containing alternating bands of red and black, in a sort of log cabin style of piecing.  Some of the units started with a red center, some with a black center.  And I added a few thin strips of gold.  Not to every unit, but to a select few. 

When a had a few dozen, I started arranging them on my design wall:

Standing back, I really liked the affect:

I kept adding units until it was roughly 60" x 80".  The units are still just stuck on the board, not sewn into groupings:

Yes, they do fall down occasionally.  But I consider it an opportunity to refine the composition.

When I was happy with the way it looked, I started sewing units together into what I call chunks.  I did this by choosing several that sort of line up and making them fit.  By adding bits or cutting bits off.  Here I've taken two units out to sew together.  If you look closely you can see that the chunk directly below them and the chunk directly to the right of them are already sewn together:

When I sew chunks together, I line them up on the design wall, putting them where I want them to end up, and I tape the chunks together.  This makes it easy to cut a line that will join them together.  Often, it is a curved line.  Whatever works:

In this picture, all of the quilt is pieced in chunks.  I have taken the upper right out to sew it together:

 Here is the upper right in two chunks before I cut the line to join the pieces:

I am very careful about sewing (always with a quarter inch seam), cutting and ironing.  I want my pieces to lie flat and to be well-constructed.  No bubbling or wrinkling.  No seams that are too narrow that might rip open during quilting.  Here is half the quilt:

And, finally, the finished top.  At this point, I am calling it "Big Red," and it is approximately 49" x 62".  It shrank a lot during the piecing, but then there are a ton of seams.  I'll post more pictures when it is quilted.

Thank you for letting me share my process, and my new piece, with you!

And we'd love you to visit all of the participating blogs in the bloghop!

Monday, November 5th, 2018

• Heather: http://www.heatherquilts.blogspot.com/
• Tami: https://thriftshopcommando.blogspot.com/
• Moira: https://quiltedsnail.blogspot.com/
• Marian: http://www.seamstobesew.com 

Tuesday, November 6th, 2018

• Susan: https://desertskyquilts.wordpress.com/
• Terry: http://www.terryaskeartquilts.com/
• Lee Anna: http://lapaylor.blogspot.com/ 

Wednesday, November 7th, 2018

• Janeen: http://quiltartdesigns.blogspot.com/
• Carol: http://www.quiltedfabricart.com
• Andrée: http://quiltinglearningcombo.blogspot.com

Thursday, November 8th, 2018

• Bea: http://www.beaquilter.com/
• Irene: http://Irene.grimes.wordpress.com
• Wendy: http://www.piecefulthoughts.com/
• Judith: http://www.frimart.ch/

Friday, November 9th, 2018

• Melva: https://melvalovesscraps.blogspot.com/
• Barb: http://www.bejeweledquilts.blogspot.com
• Anita: http://quiltlovefordomesticfelicity.blogspot.com
• Alida: http://tweloquilting.blogspot.com/