I know I’ve said it before, but fabric is awesome, as are quilts. One of my favorite things to do is make the same quilt twice. Well, not the same quilt per se, but the same pattern. I like to see just how different I can make the two quilts come out.
After making the first Abecedarian quilt I knew I was going to make at least one more, and luckily a perfect chance came up when I promise to make a quilt for the darling Kim’s wee boy. While the first quilt was all about a kind of stark modernist abstraction in order to really let the quilting I designed for it shine…
This second version, which I’ve dubbed the P-Funk Remix, is all about pushing the boundaries of color decency, and throwing together as many awkward gestures as I could, letting each imbalance balance out against the others (kinda like a Parliament doing a live gig)…
The only difference in the two versions (pattern-wise that is) is that the P-Funk Remix version has a four-in border instead of a two-inch border. Otherwise they are the same quilt; I’ve just switched in a whole array of solid colors in place of the white in the first one. Oh, and then there’s the fact that I tied this quilt, going for an old-school feel rather than the ultra-mod vibe of the first one.
But the thing is that to my eye this second version is a million times more modernist than the first. No, not in those mod-century or minimalist ways that often hold sway, but in a early 20th century way, borrowing from Cézanne and Braque with a hint of Constructivism. Even as this quilt feels very traditional at first blush, for me this second version gets to the heart of the modernist problem: balance vs. symmetry and all that that entails, both formally and conceptually…
Anyway, I hope that this new version has found a happy home. I’m sure it has. Yay for Kim and her wee lad; just glad I actually managed to get this done and delivered before leaving for England. Just eleven more days!!!
Ack!!!
-t
**Note: I just realized that the second version is upside-down in the photo, so the patterns may appear different. Oops…
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