It’s done!! My Black and White Twelve Quilt, inspired by Piecework Collective’s Black and White quilt show in 2016, is the largest overprinted quilt I have tackled to date!
With the creative restrictions of black and white, I strayed from my standard light grey and white geometric quilt top and played with a different neutral: cream. Although it felt like a stretch at the time, I now regularly keep cream in my quilting line-up. The resulting subtle play between the cream and white and the dark grey and black adds gentle movement while imbuing the quilt with a warmth that a cooler lighter grey does not provide.
For this quilt, I also experimented with piecing the quilt top halfway, screen printing blooms, and then finishing the piecing process. Previously I either printed on a completely pieced top or a completely pieced and quilted top, never part way through the piecing process! It definitely adds some waiting time as the screen printed blooms need to dry before the quilt can be stitched up further, but I love how this printing process causes the flowers to weave through the quilt, contrasting organic with the architectural.
The quilting took me years. Literally. Started in 2016, this quilt has been in process a long time, but while trying to finish my PhD last year, the seemingly endless straight-line quilting offered me a methodical and restful rhythm.
I am excited to have it finished at last, and I am pondering what it would mean to tackle a quilt of this magnitude again. Although I enjoyed the process, I think I may collaborate with a long-arm quilter next time. That said, it would be hard to let go of total control…I guess only time will tell!
Follow the progress of this quilt with the links below: