Welcome to everyone here for the Modern Appliqué Illusions Blog Tour! I enjoyed getting to know author Casey York over lunch at Quilting LIVE in Atlanta, right before the book debuted, and I’m pleased (but not surprised) to report that her book is equally enjoyable.
The illusions Casey explores in Modern Appliqué Illusions are those that lend a sense of perspective to the flat surface of a quilt. She explores the concept through lots of different techniques and approaches, which makes for plenty of inspiration.
Casey is absolutely the right person to present these ideas—her solid grounding in art history enriches and contextualizes the technique discussions. She interprets classic methods of perspective from Western art in fabric and thread rather than paint or ink, and I really enjoyed learning about the theoretical background while seeing the ideas put to use in quilts.
I was also struck that, though this is first and foremost a book about appliqué, Casey goes into detail about how she also uses quilting to enhance the appliquéd perspective effects. So often quilting instructions stop at “quilt as desired,” but Casey, for example, gives precise dimensions for how to plan the radiating quilting for Tunnel Vision (shown above) while explaining the underlying concepts so you can adapt them to your own designs.
The perspective-quilting techniques are easily achieved on a domestic machine, as Casey shows by quilting many of the book’s projects herself, which I always appreciate from quilt-book authors. In a quilt like River Bend, I love that the appliqué, fabric choices, and quilting all contribute to the overall composition as well as the sense of perspective, turning a relatively simple quilt into much more.
The general rule of thumb is that quilting shouldn’t cross over appliqués, but Casey’s quilt Ripples is a great example of why rules of thumb aren’t set in stone: she quilted concentric circles to suggest ripples on the surface of the water above the koi, which is a fantastic way to reinforce the sense of depth introduced by the appliquéd shadows.
That only scratches the surface of Casey’s ideas for bringing perspective into your appliqué, so make sure to check out the book
for more! (You can get signed copies from Casey’s shop.) Stop by Casey’s blog (she’s talking about her Grove quilt today, which has more interesting quilting to suggest rounded tree trunks) as well as the rest of the blogs on the tour—GenQ is up tomorrow!
- 11/10: C&T Publishing
- 11/11: Jenifer Dick/42 Quilts
- 11/12: Debbie Grifka/Esch House Quilts
- 11/13: Pink Chalk Studio
- 11/14: Shannon Brinkley/Bottle Tree
- 11/15: Pellon
- 11/16: Kevin Kosbab/Feed Dog Designs ← You are here
- 11/17: Generation Q Magazine
- 11/18: Krista Robbins/Sew What's Cooking?
- 11/19: Fat Quarter Shop/Jolly Jabber
- 11/20: Violet Craft
...perhaps the “high” designers of the period and their craft-oriented colleagues were closer connected that we might think....
