Not Even Solomon: the quilt that began my career as a textile artist
These vibrant blossoms were dancing on their pale stems with no regard for the more sombre foliage surrounding them. The frivolity of the blossoms contrasted with the line and form of the tough and sturdy leaves display the beautiful attention to detail in God's creation. I wanted to capture some of this by playing with positive and negative space, value differences and contrasting colour.
“Not Even Solomon…” was awarded Best of Show at QuiltWest 2007 and toured Australia with the other state winners for a year. It is now part of the Del Thomas Contemporary Quilt Collection.
In 2007 I made a quilt titled ‘Not Even Solomon’. It wasn’t my first art quilt, but I do regard it as the piece that kicked off my career as a textile artist. The quilt is well travelled, and has appeared in multiple books and magazines. It is well loved. It is now part of the Del Thomas Contemporary Quilt Collection, which is an honour! I thought I’d give it a place on this blog.
Already for two years before making this artwork I had been exploring the subject of eucalypt leaves and blossoms in my quilts. God’s creation is awe-inspiring in its beauty. My artwork flows from my passion for God’s creation and observing and studying the design, creation and preservation of the natural world teaches me more of the glory of God. Through my artwork I find that I become more aware of the beauty of creation especially in the small details, such as the veins that produce pattern and texture on a eucalyptus leaf.
In “Not Even Solomon…” I focussed on the dramatic contrast of the delicate blossoms against the tough and sturdy leaves. It seemed as if these blossoms were dancing on their pale stems despite the sombre foliage by which they were surrounded. I wanted to capture some of this by playing with positive and negative space, value differences and contrasting colour.
When I made this quilt it was well and truly my favourite. I am excited about the vibrant colours – that is a bit of a breakthrough for me as I had used more subdued colours before. Before “Not Even Solomon…” I had made a couple of smaller quilts on the subject of eucalyptus leaves and blossoms which in one sense were experimental pieces – I tried new techniques in the machine piecing, and played with colour a little bit, as well as developing my machine quilting. I felt that what I learnt in these quilts all came together in “Not Even Solomon…”. I learnt from some of the things I wasn’t happy with in the earlier pieces. I’m sure that in future pieces I will build on what I have learnt in making “Not Even Solomon…”.
What’s with the title?
The title “Not Even Solomon..” is based on a Bible text regarding the flowers of the field. As the passage notes, ‘not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these’ (Matthew 6:25-34). Solomon was a very wise and very wealthy Jewish king many years earlier, and as I was looking at the ‘splendour’ of these blossoms I had to agree that they were so much more beautiful even than royal robes. If God cares about mere flowers enough to make them as beautiful as this, He cares even more about the people He has created.
The Quiltmaking Process
The quilt is machine pieced and machine quilted. I dyed all the fabrics using Procion dye on white cotton homespun. (113 colours were used in this quilt).
I started with a series of sketches, familiarising myself with the blossoms, and playing with various design possibilities. Once I had a rough idea of the design I wanted to make, I drew it up on the computer with a computer-aided-drawing program. I printed it out in actual size onto sheets of A4 paper. I taped the papers together so that I had a full size picture of the quilt. I traced this onto the wrong side of some iron-on interfacing, adding notches on the curved lines (similar to notches in dressmaking). I then cut up the interfacing one section at a time. Each piece of interfacing is ironed onto the appropriate colour fabric and then cut out, including a seam allowance. Then it is a bit a puzzle to match up the various pieces again. The pieces are pinned together, matching notches. Then when I sew along the edge of the interfacing, the pieces should be perfectly joined. Once the quilt top was pieced in this way, and layered with the wadding and backing fabric, the fun began! Quilting took me just as long as the piecing did, and I developed some serious muscles in my arms! The whole quilt was quilted with free motion stitching, using my darning foot. At the start and end of every line of quilting, I leave a ‘tail’, which is pulled to the top of the quilt. By the end of the quilting process the quilt top is covered in threads. All these threads are tied off and threaded between the layers of the quilt, to finish it all off neatly and securely.
I used only fabrics dyed by myself. I like the slight unevenness of colour which hand-dyeing gives me. Using hand-dyed fabrics also enables me to use a selection of 40 slightly different greens which I would probably be hard-pressed to find commercially! The colours used are based on observing the blossoms and leaves in real life, with some allowance for artistic license!
I spent quite a bit of time working on the design before I started, so that I could be fairly confident about that once I started sewing. The piecing was not difficult, just laborious – although I thoroughly enjoyed the process. The hardest thing for me was getting started with the quilting. With all my quilts, that is the most difficult thing – although it is more psychological than anything, as once I have started the quilting, it is quite a relaxing process.