Achromatic Quilts

The definition of achromatic is: “without color”, and it’s also the theme of our latest “big” challenge at ThreadBenders:

“Quilts must be black, white and/or gray (no off-white or blue grays). Any technique, designs or embellishments may be used in the quilt center, as long as there is no color added.  Size 37″ square: center of quilt 32″ x 32″; visible 2″ solid white border all around; and 1/2″ binding in the same metallic gray used by all.”

The rules may seem a bit intense, but since the theme was so open to interpretation, we wanted the quilts to still have a cohesive look.

Have you ever made an achromatic quilt? I had a bunch of ideas, but one by one they didn’t turn into what I envisioned. The first was to try “thread sketching” a photo of the pier at our previous home. A 32″ square whole cloth in which the design is only done in thread sounded like fun. So I printed the photo in black and white, and made a sample pattern. Then I layered a small quilt sandwich and jumped in.

The sample on the right was as far as I got when I realized it wasn’t as much fun as I thought it would be. So on to plan B. I took a photograph of a curvy road and decided to have “geese” fly down it using a photo altering program. After a while I knew this wasn’t what I wanted to do either.

As a side note some of you might be interested to know that I no longer use Photoshop™, but have changed to Affinity Photo™. It’s been a good change for me. Contact me if you’d like more information.

So now what? I’ve said before that artists are inspired by many things, and my faith in Jesus has been a big part of the inspiration for many of my quilts. So one night I simply prayed for an idea that would bring Him glory. In the morning I had a new direction based on Genesis 1:4 “And God divided the light from the darkness”. Why don’t I pray about it first ?!?

I love working with swirls and spirals, so I searched the internet for a positive/negative, black/white swirling image to give me the “bones” of the design. I deleted some portions, and added others until I was happy with it. Then I had the pattern enlarged to actual size, straight stitched the pattern through the black and white layers,

trimmed away what wasn’t needed, and spent two days at our December retreat satin stitching it all via Repliqué (on my new machine – I love it!).

It was looking good, but something was missing. I had another conversation with the Lord and thought about how sin is often referred to as darkness in the Bible, while Jesus is called the “Light of the World”. According to the Gospel of John, Jesus was the Word God spoke to create everything. He was there at the beginning, and God’s plan was already in place to have Him suffer, die and rise again to pay the price for all who would believe. So I needed to add the cross. That was what was missing. I added it at top center, white on white (it’s subtle, but it’s there ~ and much easier to see in person). Then it was all framed with a gray flange, and the white border.

Once the quilt sandwich was pinned I experimented with different quilting designs, drawing them on with a sliver of soap on the dark fabric and an erasable fabric marker on the light.

The quilting step was great fun (I love spirals!). When that was completed I decided that the white border was so narrow it might not need any quilting. So I put on the binding and discovered I was wrong. The border did need quilting. Then it was finished!

Last week was the “big reveal” meeting where we bring in our challenge quilts, do a sort of “bed turning” in which we all get to see them one at a time, and then wait while our fellow ThreadBender ~ and amazing judge ~ Carol Butzke, juries them to select the eight that will be entered in the Ultimate Guild Challenge competition at the AQS show in Grand Rapids. There were thirteen quilts revealed and they were each wonderful! They are now posted to our ThreadBenders site. To see them you can click here! I’m so blessed to be a part of this talented group!

These quilts have been invited to be displayed at the Crazy Quliters Quilt Show in Mukwonago, WI on March 29-30. For all the details on that show click here.