In this new showcase I’m featuring four Modern Quilters that you will love!
Jemima Flendt
Hello – I’m Jemima Flendt from Tied with a Ribbon (@tiedwitharibbon). I am a Pattern Designer, Author, Fabric Designer and Quilt Maker based in Perth Western Australia. I have been sewing since I was a young girl and found Quilting when I was about 17 years old. I began taking classes at my Local Patchwork Store and pretty much haven’t stopped Quilting since. I used to do a lot of craft with my Nana as a young girl – sewing, learning to crochet and bake. My mum also was always sewing clothes for my family so it has always been a big part of my childhood. When I was about 17, I started quilting. I used to read books and have my mum take me to get fabrics or raid her stash to make them. As I grew older I started to take some lessons, learning all about quilting techniques, how to make different traditional blocks and how to machine quilt. I was a High School Home Economics Teacher before leaving teaching to pursue my Quilting professionally. My first book – “Weekend Quilting” was released in 2017 and my second book, “Quilt Big” was released in 2018. I am very passionate about teaching and getting people interested and inspired to learn to Quilt. I design Modern Quilt Patterns under my Label Tied with a Ribbon for all lever of makers and have also just released My first Fabric Collection – #Babyontrend Story Book Vol 1
What Inspires me to create – Often I like to draw on stories from my childhood or things in my life that are important to me. Often a new design will start from a memory. I enjoy choosing designs, fabrics and colours of the quilts that I make to suit the person they are made for. Sometimes I might see a picture or colour palette that will spark the beginnings of a new design. I love looking at Building and Architecture of places that I have travelled and how the shapes can translate into fabric. My girls have always played a large part in my Quilting and Sewing. I often ask them what they think about a design or fabrics I may have pulled for a project. They can be very, very honest. Especially when they were younger they would sit and draw in my sewing studio while I was working and then they would come to me and ask me to make the picture into a quilt or project.
Favourite Colours and design Elements – I love to work with Bold and colourful Palettes. I love to see how Solids and Prints will play together in a design as well as Texture. I love adding texture through different substates of fabric into a Quilt or Project. I am very drawn to the fabrics designed by Tula Pink and Anna Maria Horner. I also love textural fabrics like Warp and Weft by Marcella Alexia Marcelle Abegg for Ruby Star Society. I love to design Quilt patterns that inspire and invite beginners to want to sew as well as be enjoyable for those more experienced.
Sheri Cifaldi-Morrill
Hello! I’m Sheri Cifaldi-Morrill of Whole Circle Studio (https://www.wholecirclestudio.com/). I’m a designer, independent quilt pattern publisher, professional quilter, and educators. I work out of my home studio in New Haven, Connecticut, USA.
Designing and making things, in one way, shape or form, has always been a big part of my life I earned an undergraduate degree in fine arts with a concentration in graphic design, and over the past 20 years, I’ve worked in small design studios, as a designer for a web company and as the director of exhibits at a children’s museum. During this time, I also experimented with book making, letterpress and beading. I bought my first sewing machine for $100 in the 90s to sew paper.
Wanting to make a quilt, I bought my first quilt pattern book in 2006. There was only one problem—I didn’t know how to use a sewing machine. Busy with work, that book sat on my shelf for seven years until I needed a distraction from a stressful situation in my life. My first few quilts I made for others—to celebrate the births of babies, weddings and friends moving into exciting new phases of their lives. I became addicted to quilt making and then realized that with my graphic design and technical skills I could design my own quilts. After sharing my work with others online and in quilt guilds, I was asked to share my patterns. In 2015, I started Whole Circle Studio, LLC. Whole Circle Studio specializes in the design of custom modern quilts, patterns and other licensed products.
I also enjoy giving presentations and teaching at guilds, shops, and conferences both in-person and online.
Inspiration for my work comes from my everday life. I take a lots of photos and sometimes sketch. As a trained graphic designer, I approach my quilt design as I do with any graphic design project. I believe design and content have a symbiotic relationship. Both need to support one another and require a strong concept to fuel them. My quilt designs start with a concept and the content (research, backstory, color, fabric selection and technique) help shape the design. Never without my camera and sketchbook, I’m always taking photos and sketching from everyday inspirations.I design and document quilt patterns and fabric in Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign.
My quilts have gained international recognition, including awards from QuiltCon, International Quilt Festival, Quilt Week/Paducah, the Quilt Alliance, and the Modern Quilt Guild. Additionally, my work has been featured at art centers and galleries around the country. My quilts work have been included in books and publications such as Modern Quilts: Designs of the New Century, Modern Patchwork and International Quilt Festival Scene. I self-publish and distribute my quilt patterns, which can be found at quilt shops worldwide and online.
Learn more about me and her work at http://www.wholecirclestudio.com/ and on Instagram: @wholecirclestudio
Patti Coppock
Hello. I am 67 years old and have been sitting behind a sewing machine since the age of 9. I completed my first quilt around 1996. It was a sawtooth star pattern made with all plaid fabrics, very traditional. A few years ago I was introduced to more modern quilts in a class with Gwen Marsden. I continued instruction in modern and improvisational styles of quilting. Denyse Schmidt (@dsquilts), Sherri Lynn Wood (@sherrilynnwood) and Joe Cunningham (@joethequilter) were my biggest influences having taken classes with all three. Recently, I am highly influenced by and have become friends with Irene Roderick (@hixsonir) and Annie Hudnut (@anniehudnut). Both have helped set me in a challenging and fun new direction in my work! It is stretching me both artistically and with the construction of my quilts.
I enjoy combining piecing with some hand applique. I am drawn to bright, cheerful colors and designs. Design elements I am attracted to are found within nature, other types of art, looking at the world around me. I am excited to continue working in this direction.
Marianne Haak
Even though there are no quilters in my family, I grew up playing in the scrap bin, so to speak. My very artistic mother sewed all our clothing and took up weaving after we all left home. She was a wonderful example of creativity. I was always surrounded by colour and beauty. In elementary school I took some art classes at our local art gallery and at about fifteen years of age I started sewing my own clothing. At the age of twenty I bought my first sewing machine the week I got home from my honeymoon.
Actually, I made my first quilt in the mid-seventies, but the quilting bug didn’t really bite until several years later. In the late eighties I worked in a fabric store and choosing quilting fabrics with customers was something I really loved. I started devouring quilting books. I was heavily influenced by the work of Nancy Crow and Gwen Marston. So, I started to play.
Then I discovered Flickr and found a whole subculture of likeminded quilters!!! I started blogging and the interaction was absolutely wonderful.
So, what inspires me? Well, it can be a technique, a certain piece of fabric, a spectacular sunset or the way the light hits the glass of a beautiful building. I’m also driven by what I call my “lazy gene”. I’m always saying “there has to be an easier way to do this”. I’m also driven by the words “what if”. An example is my delving into Quilt-as-you-go methods. I know many quilters manage to wrestle a huge quilt under a domestic machine but I am just not one of them. So, the continual experimenting with quilting in small sections led me into a full-blown love affair with QAYG.
My work usually has lots of colour and a mix of solids, stripes and graphic type fabrics. I like mixing several fairly simple techniques in order to create more complex results. I love improvisational quilting with very little if any sketching ahead of time. Just loosing myself in the process is very therapeutic for me. Often what is going on inside has a tendency to come out in the quilt. Each quilt has it’s own story.
