Design Concept

When my father was 96 years old, we found a picture of his grandmother taken in the 1890's. Even though she died when he was a young child, he remembered her as kindest person he ever met.  Although I never met her, her influence can be felt through her picture and through my father’s kind and gentle nature.  The photos of her and of me, in this computer assisted design collage were taken 100 years apart.

 Hidden Influences is a collage of photographs and graphics designed in Corel Draw, my computer assisted drawing program.  The two faces float behind a field of rainbow colored checks. The images were printed onto cotton broadcloth which had been soaked in Bubble Jet Set, dried and ironed to freezer paper. This quilt was printed out in three 12" (30cm) wide x 32" high sections using the banner setting on my Epson Photo Stylus 1200 printer. They were then sewn together to form the complete image. The quilting was done very simply in straight lines following the lines between the checks.

Information about printing your own photos on fabric can be found here.

Exhibitions:

• Narrative Portraits, 2000 Museum of the American Quilters Society, and traveling 2000-2003
• Pushing the Surface 2003: Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum, Coshocton, OH 43812 740-622-8710 June-August, 2003
• Fabric Cottage, Annual Quilt Festival, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 2004

Publications

• American Quilter, Spring 2001, p. 28