Shadowed Quilts

Create the optical illusion of leaves floating with shadows for a quilt.

Female: Coline, you have expensive taste. Well you brought some of these fabulous quilts with you today that I like to spend some time on. The first ones called Botanica. It’s incredible. Now how did you do this? Coline: Well it’s the same process that I used for Botanically Correct, but on a larger scale. But just like Botanically Correct, all those leaves are true life leaves that I used. Including that really large one in the middle. Female: You're kidding me, where did you get that leaf? Coline: Out of my yard. Female: Well that’s what rain brings. Coline: That’s right. Female: That’s a real leaf. I thought it was maybe something that you faked cut out or something like that. Coline: No, and I'm sorry I can't remember the Latin name for it and I don’t know if it has a common name. My kids call it the Elephant Ear. Female: It’s hard at home for everyone to appreciate how large this quilt is, this is a very large quilt. Coline: And that's a small leaf of that plant. Female: Really? Coline: It get about 6 feet tall. Female: Wow. And now we can look at Eclipse. Tell us about this quilt please. Coline: Eclipse is again a discharge to quilt. And I was trying to capture kind of the movement of the planets around each other. And dance of the celestial spheres. Female: And how long have you been planning with this process? Coline: About 6 years. Female: 6 years? Coline: 7 years. Female: Do you feel like you're just beginning with it and there is so much more you can do? Coline: I can think of a million things to do. Female: Oh man. Now Solar Energy. Tell us about this please. Coline: That was a quilt that is in Quilt National, so I'm really proud of that. And it’s the same kind of a process of discharging. I added paper piece bordering. Female: Now those are plaids, and I guess plaids would work because it essentially a plaid is a two sided fabric also. Coline: Just make sure that it is and that it’s not a printed plaid. Female: That’s very subtle. Very subtle, but it’s there. And then Emerald City. Coline: Emerald City is where I pieced my shadows in rather than discharging them. So I used all kinds of techniques to create some depth in quilting. Female: Well I would think with the discharge way, it would almost be easier than piecing that in, isn't it? Coline: Oh, that’s a piece of cake. This quilt. Female: Really? Coline: Yeah. Female: Oh man. Thank you so much for coming Coline