I am really in love with this quilt for many reasons. Firstly I wasn't that fond of the colour. Coral, hm. But hey, it's a challenge and you gotta make that work.
After selecting coral solids and combining them with some prints the colour grew on me. I also added a lot of texture with linen and shot cottons, which worked really well.
I also had the idea of having the coral colour fading to grey. That was a play with volume and different colour shades to achieve this ombre effect I very much enjoyed doing.
I wasn't sure if improv log cabin blocks were the right choice for a challenge but it suited the idea of reflecting a coral reef so much that I went with it. Because not only did I get inspired by the colour coral but I also wanted to highlight that our coral reefs are dying. And when they do they turn grey, this sad process is called bleaching and is effecting a large percentage of our coral reefs due to pollution and the temperature rise of our oceans.
The quilting is another reason why I love this quilt so much. I thought long about doing straight lines, but in whatever direction I imagined the lines to be it just wasn't the right thing to do. I started free motion quilting improv geometric shapes all over and that worked so well. The thread colour also changes towards the top, where it's first light grey and then white.
The back is simple but follows the same principle, coral at the bottom, light grey at the top.
The quilting with different thread colours is very evident at the back and it looks good here, too. I did a faced binding to just focus on the quilt itself.
We went to an former steel production plant Jahrhunderthalle in my hometown to take photos. The rusty panels and old walls gave the quilt such a great backdrop.
And how suitable is the art installation of American artist Olu Oguibe installed for the Ruhrtriennale in 2018, you can read more about it here.
Name: Fade To Grey
Size: 50 x 55" (127 x 140cm)
Category: large quilts, international
Country: Germany
Linking this to Rebecca and Sarah, thanks you so much for organising the challenge again this year!
