Connecting Design To Stitch: Applying the secrets of art and design to quilting and textile art - Hardcover

Meech, Sandra

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 184994024X ISBN 13: 9781849940245

Publisher: Batsford, 2012

Synopsis

Celebrated quilt artist Sandra Meech's last book, Connecting Art to Stitch, explored the ways in which fine-art concepts can be taken into stitch to make outstanding pieces of quilt art. In this exciting new title, the author turns her attention to the rules of design, and how they can be harnessed - and broken - to inform your quilt-art work. You will learn how to recognise good design, and the immutable rules all designers need to know. The author's signature practical workshops and exercises help you translate these rules into your own textile work, stimulating your creativity and encouraging you to explore new textures, materials, techniques and compositions. Detailed analyses of textile artists' work provide a breakdown of how design rules can be applied. Illustrated with a wealth of inspirational images from the world's best quilt and textile artists, this beautiful book is a must-buy for everyone who wants to create better textile art.

About this title

About the Author

Award-winning quilt artist Sandra Meech is a teacher and lecturer who works with textile groups in the UK and abroad. She is a member of Quilt Art and exhibits widely around the world. She is the author of Creative Quilts, Connecting Design to Stitch, Connecting Art to Stitch and Contemporary Quilts.

Review

Sandra Meech has written Connecting Design to Stitch as a very serious book on design, a much more scholarly work than most. So often we expect our quilting and fiber arts books to be about techniques, but Sandra has taken a different approach. She feels we should pick our colors, embellishments, and surface techniques wisely, not based upon what the latest trends and materials are, but rather based upon how well they will support our theme.

Connecting Design to Stitch explores how our theme can be carried through our textile art through the judicious use of design elements and principles. Sandra focuses on the creative process more than the details of technique, and she also includes interesting exercises to help us refine our own patterns and preferences.

'A dynamic design draws the viewer into your work. The strong use of shape, image, or color captures the viewer’s interest initially, and then their eye will be led across the rest of the surface.'

This can be tough for people who have learned quilting through traditional methods, like creating bed quilts with their regularity in design. In order to break through, it is essential, Sandra feels, to have a design wall and a digital camera. Makes sense to me.

My favorite parts of this book cover about a gazillion suggestions for sources of inspiration, just in case your well runs dry. There are also excellent sections on abstract textile art, compositional styles, and border design. All in all, if you are looking for help with design, this is a great place to start.
(mixed-media-artist.com, 11/17/12)

Edition details

• Publisher: Batsford
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 184994024X
• ISBN 13: 9781849940245
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 128