3D Quilts- real, not illusory

Making things in 3D, real and not illusory, is a challenge I enjoy. I think it started with a couple origami books that probably my father bought when I was a child. I made every model in both books. I went on to making other paper models of things like polyhedrons, imaginary birds, etc. when in college.

I moved on to quilts, then came back to 3D by combining 3D and quilts. Both of the following quilts were made last year.

Corrugated Tessellation #1

Technically, by the commonly accepted definition of a quilt as having two layers of fabric with a batt (which is sometime fabric or other material) in between and stitching holding together the three layer, Corrugated Tessellation #1 is a quilt. Although it has more than three layers, what and how it is quilted might be considered questionable my some. The top layer of fabric is machine stitched to a layer of stabilizer. The black back fabric encases a couple layers of heavyweight stabilizer (which are stitched together). And finally the folded top is hand stitched to the flat back with beads in the valleys. The beads on the peaks serve not only decoration, but hold the shape of folded intersections.

This small quilt is 12″ x 12″ x 1″. It utilizes a lightweight stabilizer as the batting on the 3D part and a heavy weight stabilizer for the 2D part.

Blue and White Double Pleat Square Tessellation Garden

Another small 3D quilt. It is approximately 15.25″ x 15.25″ x 1.25″. The blue fabric is one piece (except the border) and the white flowers are separate units tucked into the folds of the blue fabric. Both the white fabric and the hand dyed blue fabric were hand colored with texture rubbings using pastel dye sticks. When the pleats were folded, the textures were not visible until the pleats were pulled up and stitched together with beads to form square flowers.

The quilt is self batted, meaning the folds of both the blue and the white fabrics become the inner layer that is used as the batting, with the layers held together with machine quilting.

I tend to not like picking favorites, since each quilt has something about it that makes it special, but this is one of my favorites.

Instead of limiting myself to just quilts, I have expanded into anything fiber, and lately it is three dimensional that holds my interest.

Note: the pictures are not very good representations of the quilts for two reasons. It is difficult for me to photograph them and one of my photo bulbs died so the lighting was even more compromised.