In this new showcase I’m featuring four Modern Quilters that you will love!
Shelby Marie Skumanich
I grew up around sewists; my mom sewed many of my clothes, my grandmother was a seamstress at a local women’s clothing store, and my aunt is an accomplished quilter. Where I am from in central Pennsylvania has a notable population of Amish and Mennonite folks. I have vivid memories of going to their fabric stores, as well as seeing quilts out on lines and on fences. Quilts were part of the landscape.
I learned how to sew by hand when I was six and by machine at 11. In high school, I found the magic of patchwork and loved taking a bunch of small things and making a bigger thing out of them. I studied fine art photography in college at Lesley University College of Art and Design and graduated in 2007. There, I started using art to explore the various parts of my identity.
My grandmother passed away in 2012, who was so encouraging of me to explore my creativity. She left an entire bedroom full of fabric and other sewing supplies so I decided to go back to sewing. I threw myself into learning the history and technical aspects of quilting and taught myself how to hand quilt. I learned about improv quilting and flexible patterning from Sherri Lynn Wood when I took one of her classes in 2014.
My work has evolved from traditional compositions with restricted color to improvisationally pieced work that uses color expansively. As the forms of my quilts and use of color has evolved, they’ve served as mirrors for my identity. My quilts have become abstract explorations of my inner world, specifically around the constructs of gender, class, race. I still use basic, traditional quilt blocks and forms to make all of my quilts, such as variations of log cabin, four patch, and half square triangle blocks. Their simplicity provides me with so much variety.
While I draw inspiration from Amish quilts from the 19th and 20th century, Gee’s Bend, and female abstract expressionist painters, much of my form and color palette inspiration comes from the landscape where I live in northern Colorado. Prairie’s color palette is taken from the golden color the prairie turns in late summer and Mother’s color palette is inspired by Red Mountain, an area that I hike in quite often.
Amanda Loewen
My name is Amanda Loewen of Prairie Quilt Co. I am a quilt maker and pattern designer from Manitoba, Canada. My journey into quilting began five years ago when I was on maternity leave with my second child. I was experiencing postpartum depression and I needed something creative and new in my life to give me meaningful focus. Quilting turned out to be the perfect therapy for me. Prior to this I knew the basics of my sewing machine for simple sewing projects, but the process of making a quilt was entirely new to me. I spent the next few months self-teaching myself how to quilt through Pinterest, blog tutorials and Youtube!
When I returned to my day job of teaching elementary school I continued pursuing my new quilting hobby. I created an Instagram account to participate in a quilt along and discovered that I loved sharing my quilting progress with the online quilting community. I enjoyed sewing patterns from many designers, and soon began pattern testing. As a pattern tester I loved getting behind the scenes in the pattern writing process and built relationships with designers.
During the lockdown of 2020 I really felt I came to understand my niche and style as a quilter. I love using fresh, modern colours – pink, yellow, and blue are my favourite – and I love to mix a lot of prints together for a scrappy look. My favourite patterns include traditional quilt motifs like log cabins, sawtooth stars, and Irish chains.
In lockdown I started dreaming about designing my own patterns. I had an idea inspired by a vintage tile floor, but I didn’t know how to write it down. I signed up for a pattern writing course in 2021 with Quilter’s Candy and learned all the technical aspects I needed to turn my ideas turned into reality. I released that pattern, the Wild Starflower Quilt, this past April. Since then I’ve kept designing! I’m inspired by nature, art, tile and traditional quilt motifs.
I am still a teacher by day and I love to share my quilting passion with my students. We have made class quilts to donate to local and global organizations and I have run mini classes at my school to teach patchwork sewing projects. It’s incredibly fulfilling to share my love of quilting with the next generation!
RachaelDaisy Dodd
I’m Rachaeldaisy, a playful Aussie quilter. I had a very creative upbringing. My parents were artists and our house was full of art. Colourful rooms with abstract paintings, big bold Marimekko curtains, indian textiles, Sri Lankan batik wall hangings, Japanese painted scrolls, tables and shelves of contemporary ceramics. My earliest memories were of being in art galleries.
I started playing with fabric as a little girl, spending time with my grandmother. She would make clothes and I’d use her scraps to make clothes for my dolls.
When I entered the workforce I was a florist for 20 years which gave me the chance to play with color, texture and design, not only with flower arrangements of all types, but also eye catching window displays, installations for large events, fashion and magazine shoots. I see my quilting very much as a continuation of a creative life journey. I apply many of the creative processes and design elements I learned through my work with flowers to quilting. I discovered patchwork and quilting around 2007 when I arrived in a new city and decided I needed a hobby.
The Sydney Quilt Show was on and on the spur of the moment Mr Daisy and I thought we’d go and have a look. It was as though we’d wandered into a wonderland with so many beautiful quilts and endless aisles of fabric. The spark was lit and I went home that evening with a bag of quilting tools and started making a simple quilt of squares. Initially I learnt from library books, I borrowed every quilt book I could from Amish quilts to Baltimore to Gees Bend to early Kaffe books, and everything in between. This gave me a great grounding and appreciation for a wide variety of styles of patchwork.
This also might explain why my style jumps around from traditional, vintage to modern patchwork, and to all sorts of techniques. I love it all and want to try everything! I usually use patterned fabrics, lots of pattern on pattern, but in my modern quilts I often step into bright solids or denim and recycled fabrics. Many of my quilts feature 3D elements such as Yo-Yos, Prairie Points and textured organic hand quilting, maybe it was all those years of working with flowers and 3D forms.