As I was working on my latest UFO to hopefully get completed this week, I began to realize how thankful I am for the influence of others on my quilt life.
A year and a half ago, two quilting friends and I went to Quilting By The Lake in Syracuse, NY. We were signed up for Philippa Naylors Open Studio class. I was so excited, because I had Philippa's book, Quilting In the Limelight, and I just loved her work and how she tackled complicated quilts. I was armed with my sketchbook and my goal was to have her share her technique for completely at least one of them. Oh wait, this post is about global influences....did I mention that Philippa is from the UK and has lived in Saudi Arabia, where she first started quilting :-).
So Philippa described how she would tackle the three sketches and we decided on one, since the technique for the center was something I had never done before.
Once home, I was thrilled, but other projects got in the way and
it sat. I did work on it just under a year ago, to add the borders and
trapunto. Philippa's book is how I learned to perfect my trapunto
style.
Now that the top is
quilted, I realized how many other quilters have influenced this piece.
There is Claudia Pfeil, from Germany, who gave me the courage to make
my own feathers and not worry if they were correct. You can see those
feather's in this piece.
There
is Mandy Applebee Hares, Lisa Stripes, Mary Anne Ciccotelli and Karen
McTavish, all from the US, who have influenced and inspired me to
perfect my quilting. No it isn't perfect, but these ladies at different
points along the way, all gave me the confidence to take the next step.
There is even Donna Chambers, one of those friends that took the trip
with me many months ago, who challenged me to up my game in the creation
and style of my tops.
Of course,
there are others that I have missed, but am I ever thankful for the
internet and all these wonderful sharing ladies, who have helped me to
progress along this journey we call quilting!
