My First Quilt

My First Quilt: I started after a saw an exhibit in San Fransciso in 1988 at the San Francisco Craft and Folk Art Museum about quilts that were made from different types of fabric. They were called improvisational quilts. Wild colors were used, the corners didn't match, some women didn't even use templates! None of the quilts I saw were traditional by any stretch. My Artist eye saw abstract compositions and fantastic art, a voice in my head said "you can do that". Everything about them sang to me. Soon afterwards I got aquainted with the the local fabric stores in San Francisco and started collecting fabric. I had to make a quilt that was improvisational. Forget that I didn't know anything about proper quilting, I knew how to sew and I had a sewing machine. I've never been one for following directions.

Thankfully, Mom bought the exhibit catalog, I've since adopted it into my collection and still never tire of pulling it out and reliving that day those quilts caught a hold of me.

African American Improvisational quilting has influenced my work ever since, but I am afraid I will probably never be free enough to be truely improvisational. The latest sensation to come around is Gee's Bend and I just LOVED that exhibit too.
Gee's Bend

Here is a picture of the top when I revealed it in 1990, not exactly improvisational, but I did design my own pattern and each block is slightly different shades of the same pallet. The light areas of the blocks are just that, different colors that I tried to arrange in an interesting way. I started quilting it, but haven't pulled it out since the mid-nineties. I still have it tucked safely away. I like order too much to not make each block exactly the same and arrange the colors symetrically


Everything was stiched down onto a foundation piece of fabric, there isn't any batting because it is already so heavy. Each block is carefully quilted with matching thread. It is about a queen size top.