Rainbows and Wedding Rings

In Part 6 of our series on wedding ring quilts, today we're bringing you a magnificent double wedding ring quilt by Michèle-Renée Charbonneau at Quilt Matters. The pure colors of the rainbow stand out brilliantly against the black background; notice the way in which the colors shift from one ring to the next.  And then there's the symbolism of the rainbow, which denotes hope and prosperity.  Michèle-Renée's quilt has a special meaning because it was a replacement wedding gift quilt for her husband: she named it "10 Years and Still Over the Rainbow".

10 Years and Still Over the Rainbow by Michèle-Renée Charbonneau at Quilt Matters (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada)

Michèle-Renée, whose nickname is M-R, says: "Never before tempted to try a wedding ring quilt (those curves scared me!), I fell in love with the simplicity of this quilt's design and the precision of the star blocks. The star blocks are paper pieced and the rings are all hand pieced. It's machine quilted (walking foot - never again!) with rainbow variegated thread and has a bias black binding." This quilt was M-R's entry for a 2011 online Summer Fair hosted by GenXquilters; you can read the whole story here.

Last year, one of M-R's goals was to learn more about color and value, so she set up a Colour My World Challenge. Each month, she made a 14 x 14" mini quilt using a different color. Here are three of our favorites:

Rough Seas, for the Colour My World Challenge by Michèle-Renée Charbonneau at Quilt Matters

Inspired by a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote about hardship, M-R created this mini-quilt and called it "Rough Seas" ("It may not look like it, but that little boat will make it".) She explains the design: "For the quilting, I used eight yummy shades of Aurifil blue in a variety of cotton weights -- 40, 50 and even 28 -- to see if I could get the thread to act as the light source. Then I just played with different water-like quilting motifs in each of the wave sections. Each section was pretty small so it was fun to try different motifs to depict a crazy ocean storm."

Stop, in the name of love... and fire! for the Colour My World Challenge by Michèle-Renée Charbonneau at Quilt Matters

Here is a striking Swirling Octagon, in the shape of a STOP sign, embellished with red roll caps (...fire!) M-R chose eight red fabrics in values ranging from light to dark, to make the main block. This piece is quilted with hearts, loopy loos, small stipple, heart flow, straight lines, lollipop chain,  and a little maple leaf.  There is a story behind "Stop, in the name of love..." you can read all about it at M-R's Colour My World Red post.

Purple Tulip for the Colour My World Challenge by Michèle-Renée Charbonneau at Quilt Matters

Although it's hard to pick, this might be our favorite of M-R's twelve Colour Challenge quilts! She says:  " I used the technique I learned in Elaine Quehl's Collage Tree class... I used white, light variegated purple, dark purple variegated, medium purple and dark purple threads for the thread painting on the tulip and dark green, olive, and light variegated green threads for the stem."  You can see some gorgeous detail photos at the post: Colour My World Purple.  For more quilt inspiration, check out her entire Quilt Gallery.

Image Credits: Images are shown with the generous permission of Michèle-Renée Charbonneau.   

Art quilts: the natural world of Elaine Quehl

Elaine Quehl is an award-winning Canadian quilt artist, teacher, and dyer who specializes in intricately-stitched pieced and appliquéd art quilts. Elaine’s work has been juried into numerous exhibits at the national and international level and has been widely published, including 500 Art Quilts and Art Quilt Portfolio: Natural World (upcoming 2012). She says: "My quilts celebrate the visual drama that is present in the natural world and aim to evoke the emotion, awe and wonder I experience when I first encounter my subjects. Often described as bold and sensual, my work employs contrasts of light and shadow to intensify visual impact."   Here are a few of her magnificent works of art.

Act 3, 2010, 24” x 34” by Elaine Quehl

"Act 3" is just one of the sumptuous works in Elaine Quehl's Foliage Gallery. The soft texture of the leaves makes us want to reach out and touch them.  Beyond its immediate visual impact, what makes this piece so intriguing is the nearly microscopic detail of the leaves themselves: the stem, veins, curved and furled edges, and the appearance of dappled sunlight and shadows.  In the close-up photo below you can see the exquisite thread painting that accentuates the flowing lines of the leaves.

Smitten, 2011, 26" x 23-1/2" by Elaine Quehl

To create "Smitten", above, Elaine used her own hand-dyed fabrics along with some commercial batiks; fusible applique, Prismacolour artist pencil, and free-motion machine quilting. We love the exuberant color and abundant texture of this piece! The work was inspired by a close-up photo of a wild rose which Elaine took at the University of British Columbia Botanical Gardens in 2006. It is fascinating to compare the art quilt with the original photo, shown below.

Branching Out, 2010, 20-1/2" x 28" by Elaine Quehl

In "Branching out" Elaine Quehl has managed to capture the grandeur and imposing scale of the tree in a small space:  the entire quilt is only 20 x 28".  The perspective of looking up at the tree canopy, combined with the luminous background of the hand-dyed sky and the realistic texture of the bark, makes us feel as if we are in the scene.

Last but not least, Elaine Quehl is one of the featured artists in the brand new book, Art Quilt Portfolio: the Natural World (published by Lark Books and edited by Martha Sielman; the cover is shown below). This lavish collection of art quilts, all focused on the natural world, includes nearly 90 amazing gallery images. It is due out on April 3, 2012 at Amazon.com.... we can hardly wait to get our hands on it.

Image credits: Images are shown with the generous permission of Elaine Quehl. For more information and beautiful galleries of images, please visit Elaine Quehl's website. You can also read about upcoming events at Elaine Quehl's blog.