By the Sea - Early Morning

2012

Coming from the West Country, the sea is never far away, and this is one of my recurring themes. The fabric is inspired by photos of West Wittering beach, particularly the row of old groynes at the top of the beach near the river/ harbour mouth. They keep cropping up in my work - I have drawn them and collaged them and I'm sure they'll be around for a while longer.

The marks on the quilt are printed using thickened Procion dye and an old credit card. The card is also used to scrape dye mixed with varying amounts of Manutex over the rest of the cloth to colour it using black, rust orange, petrol green and red-brown. 

Simple machine quilting with wavy lines represents the sea, with vertical lines to supplement the grasses in the middle of the beach and the wood of the groynes and the puddles at their bases. Texture is added to the beach with hand-couched threads, seeding to blend the areas round the groynes, and tiny, widely spaced hand quilting stitches giving a Kantha-style effect en masse - making ripples in the sand.The sea has straight lines of running stitch in various thick threads. The sky, which is pale grey with a pale orangey-yellow, prompting the naming of the quilt Early Morning, has more seeding and  the same tiny, spaced-out running stitch, this time in curved lines reminiscent of aeroplane trails. 

This quilt was made for the By the Sea challenge at QGBI Region Three's regional day in April 2012, where it was awarded first prize. All 27 entries were displayed in the Aldwark gallery at the Quilt Museum and Gallery in York throughout July and August 2012.

Materials: Cotton sateen coloured by scraping with procion dyes

Methods: Wholecloth, hand and machine quilting

Size: 10 x 60 inches
Copyright © Terry Donaldson 2012. All rights reserved.