"Pumpkins" Ruth B. McDowell 1998 57"W x 44.5"L
Commercial cotton fabrics, cotton batting, cotton thread.
Machine pieced. Hand appliqué. Machine quilted.
Using her unique techniques of curved seam machine piecing for the pumpkins and straight seam machine piecing for the leaves, Ruth has created an elegant image of this common vegetable. Her whimsical choices for the background fabric include round orange flowers with green leaves which reflect the color and shape of the pumpkins, shibori, hand dyes, batiks and plaids. For the leaves there are many different fabrics in a variety of greens including a vintage piece with buttons that could represent bug holes, or raindrops. She has make a rather realistic stem by piecing striped fabric together. The only appliqué used is for the bottom circle on the foreground pumpkin. The integrated border implies a frame, but blends into background to avoid crowding the central image.
7 comments:
What a fabulous quilt! I love it! You and Ruth look adorable together, like good quilting buddies. Thanks for sharing.
I love Ruth's quilts! Lucky you !
I agree with Jeanne, you two look very fun together!
Pumpkins is super! Of course I can't think of a RBMcD quilt that I don't care for. Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful quilt with us.
joan
Every time I look at one of Ruth's quilts I am amazed by the assortment of fabrics she has used in it. I don't think I have ever seen one of hers that I didn't like.
When I see a Ruth B. McDowell quilt I cannot understand why any quilter would "clean out" her stash and discard fabric. McDowell uses everything and anything to put together her compositions. If you enlarge the quilt photo I am sure you all will see fabrics that are "out of date" or too blah to keep.
She is a genius!
I have that book and love that quilt. I am in awe of your collection and so thankful that you are willing to share it by displaying so many quilts both on your blog and places like Back Porch Fabric.
Like Wanda and Christine, I find Ruth inspiration NOT to purge my fabric stash, plus not to turn away any gifted or found fabric. You never know when that odd or "ugly" fabric will be the perfect one! I just made a small challenge quilt with feed sacks that I've had in my closet for over 12 years. ;-)
Del, Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful Ruth McDowell quilt collection with all of us. I too am a great fan of Ruth and her marvelous quilts, her creativity of subject and her incredible use of fabric, color and design.
For my "big" birthday this year, my daughters' gift is to send me to Ruth's class in MA in October '09. I am more than ecstatic at the thought of this adventure and am most grateful for the opportunity.
Thank you too for sharing your daily journal. You provide me with daily inspiration.
Thank you too for sharing the wonderful quilts you have made. Your Arizona "Roadcut" of Monday's blog is fabulous. Loretta
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