One of the reasons I got interested in Zentangle was my exposure to Karlee Porter's Graffiti Quilting technique. This very young quilter has developed an urban art/graffiti style quilting design based on the inner city influence she experienced growing up. I love the way the shapes blend together for a densely stitched continuous design of colour and texture.
I bought Karlee's self-published book and being in Canada, probably paid way too much. I still wanted to have a copy in my library of designs and get a bit of guidance on how to get started with creating complex designs in this type of quilting. The text is limited to the materials Karlee uses for her quilts and the basic elements making up the shapes. After that, there are only samples of the graffiti quilting for inspiration but little in the way of 'step by step' instructions. This is an unstructured art form and is left to the quilter to develop and achieve her own style.
Because Karlee uses a Sweet 16 for much of her smaller quilting, I was particularly curious about her work. She appears in an episode of Quilt It on QNNtv and shares her secrets to graffiti quilting. I found that video very helpful and I am excited to try it on my own Sweet 16. I have no quilts at the moment to actually quilt on the machine and it kills me to see it sitting there not in use. I bought some black fabric and poly batting so that I can experiment (and stitch!) on my Sweet. These are whole-cloth pieces so the thread and the quilting take the entire stage, not just centre stage. I will play with my different types and weights of threads as well and see what I like best. I also anticipate buying the couching feet set for my machine since Karlee also produces amazing pieces using thicker, decorative yarns and metallic threads. She makes it look so easy but as she quotes, one needs 10,000 hours of practice to be really good at something! I hope I can develop my own type of free-form quilting - whether it's a mix of Zentangle, graffiti, or just plain old AngieM stitches.
I'm excited for Karlee as she becomes more well-known in the quilting world. She has revamped her website and is beginning to travel (Western Canada, Australia) to teach and share her technique with other quilters around the world. Go Karlee!!!!
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