Exploring Dimensional Quilt Art – Stitch, Fold, Embellish by C. June Barnes; Interweave Press, 2012. ISBN 978-1-59668-588-8
It was 2004 at the Birmingham Quilt Festival in England when I fell in love with C. June Barnes’ work. Her skill in manipulating fabric to create dimension is second to none. The jacket of this book states “Raise your expectations of the limits of quiltmaking. Exploring Dimensional Quilt Art takes quilters above and beyond the surface with innovative techniques for building up surfaces and creating three-dimensional fabric structures.”
These two sentences sum up the content of the book very well. From vessels to pods, folded surfaces to embellishments, June Barnes presents a wealth of information.
Chapters provide in-depth information about the manipulation and embellishment of textile surfaces. This leads to manipulating the plane by weaving strips, coiling, folding, gathering, and smocking. If your interest includes stacking and layering, curling or wrapping you cannot ignore this resource.
My personal interest is in three dimensional shapes. Barnes introduces squares and circles and how to successfully integrate these. Platonic and Archimedean solids, spherical shapes and orbs, crescents, pyramids, prisms, cylinders and capsules are all presented with detailed sketches alongside the completed work, making it easy to find a starting point for one’s own work.
A Featured Artist Gallery completes this invaluable resource, sure to spark new ideas and a possible body of work that pushes the boundaries. I ordered my copy from Amazon.ca for well below the suggested retail price of US 26.95 (Can. $ 29.95).
