Monday, February 14, 2011

Spotlight on Ann Burgess

Ann Burgess (a/k/a C. Ann Burgess) is a magician with fabric.  She dyes, paints, and marbles the most marvelous fabrics and then incorporates them into stunning quilts of her own design.  


Ann made a tile quilt that is included in the Gallery of Contemporary Tile Quilts in Tile Quilt Revival:  




The only commercial fabric she used on the top is the gray batik background fabric in the blocks, which you see as the narrow channels of "grout" around the tiles.  All other fabrics you see are hand marbled, dyed, and painted.


The tile quilt technique, with its large and simple shapes, creates an ideal showcase for interesting fabrics.  Ann recognized the potential in a tile quilt for putting her fabrics to good use.  She designed 15" tile blocks with large, graceful tile shapes that show her fabrics to great advantage:





Here is a detail of one of her exotic dragonflies:




In this last detail, in addition to the marbled tile fabrics, you can see a bit of the fabrics Ann painted and dyed for the inner and outer borders of her quilt:




Thanks, Ann, for sharing your inspired creations.  

4 comments:

  1. Ann's fabrics are terrific. And the dragonfly block is one of my all-time favorites! Kathe

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  2. Hi Carol, I have just bought your wonderful book and am in love with the quilts and techniques in there. I was in inspired to buy it by something Di2Quilt (the commented above) made in a flickr swap which is referred to in my blog post below which also has a picture (you may or may not be interested in seeing) of a block I designed and made of a daffodil using the technique:

    http://lilysquilts.blogspot.com/2011/02/trying-new-technique.html

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  3. Carol, greetings from Taiwan! Your book is inspiring! I've just finished my first tile quilt based on a pattern from your book. Would love for you to come by and take a look!

    http://di2quilt.blogspot.com/2011/02/doll-quilt-swap-dqs10-completed.html

    Have a great day!

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