The June challenge for the 2018 Island Batik Ambassadors is to make a Modern-style quilt. 
This is proving to be a bigger challenge for some of us than for others. Personally, I consider my project, The Highland 9-Patch, a “splendid failure.”
You see, I had purchased a copy of fellow ambassador Carole Lyles Shaw’s book Madly Modern Quilts. I’ve always loved the 9-Patch, so her “Fractured Disappearing 9-Patch” project really appealed to me. Check Carole’s blog post and you’ll see how she works her magic.
It seemed simple enough… make a 9-patch, slice it up, sew it back together, slice it again, insert a strip, and voila! Nope. Didn’t happen. My muse likes to know where a pattern is going before we begin construction, and having just spent months trying to work through an improvisational project, he would not cooperate. So we compromised, my muse and I, and came up with the Highland 9-Patch. It’s still sliced and spliced, but looks nothing like Carole’s.
I did begin with a 9-Patch. Mine has an 8″ square of navy blue in the center, 9″ squares of a bright green in the corners, and the side “squares” are actually 8″ x 9″.
Then I added a 2″ border all around the block.
Next, I sliced the block vertically 2.5″ outside the center seam on both sides of the center squares…
…and spliced in a 1″ strip of navy blue.
Then I did the same thing, slicing and splicing in 1″ horizontal strips.
After that, it was a simple matter to add wide borders of the background fabric. My friend Kathy at the Creative Needle quilted it in an all-over leafy pattern, and I bound it in navy.
The Highland 9-Patch is 56″ x 72″, so it’s a nice lap-size quilt.
I began quilting in the early 1970’s, so I have pretty much seen it all, as quilting has developed from a scrap craft revival to a celebrated artistic genre, from Grandma’s hand-quilting frame to computerized longarm quilting machines in nearly every quilter’s studio. I have to admit, I dismissed the Modern Quilting Movement early on as a “fad”, but I’ve always loved big, bold, graphic art, and since it seems Modern Quilting is here to stay, I’m in!
The fabrics used in my Highland 9-Patch are from Island Batik. Thread was provided by Aurifil, and the batting by Hobbs.
Check out the Modern Quilts my fellow Island Batik Ambassadors are making:
Quilting Affection Designs
I love it, and it looks very “modern” to me
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I think you succeeded! I really like your quilt and the quilting really adds to it.
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This is a great piece! So bold and graphic. Definitely modern, with all the negative space, off grid spacing, and scale variation. Maybe your muse knew what he was doing all along 🙂
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Your quilt is bold and truly modern, lobe it’s! It gives a strong statement, success!
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I really love how your quilt evolved into “you”! It’s lovely and the colors are beautiful. The funny thing, I’m usually not a “modern” girl!
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A beautiful job – I really like the simplicty. I am finding it fun to step outside the box on these challenges.
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