The Modern Aesthetic—Putting It Into Practice

Our January Exercise in Design

What Makes a Quilt Modern?

You can read about that in an article on the Craftsy website. 

Here’s an excerpt:

According to the MQG, there are several characteristics that often appear in modern quilts. These are:

• The use of bold colors and prints
• High contrast and graphic areas of solid color
• Improvisational piecing
• Minimalism
• Expansive negative space
• Alternate grid work

“Modern traditionalism” or the updating of classic quilt designs is also often seen in modern quilting.

Remember, a modern quilt will likely have some but not all of these characteristics.

For the first three months of this year, the ChattMQG will offer exercises in modern design. Each month we will examine a quilting block, experiment with design on graph paper, and see what we can create.

The January block is the Quarter Square Triangle (QST) and its four variations.

If you don’t know how to make a QST, About.com has a basic tutorial.

Here is the information we received at the January meeting:

Directions for Designing a QST Quilt

Cut out the already-printed blocks, arrange them into something you like on the graph paper provided, and have fun!

Please bring your graph paper design, pieced top, or finished quilt to our February meeting for show and tell.

Jean Larson will be doing a live tutorial on constructing the QST block immediately after our February meeting.