Quilt National 2025 Barbara Shcneider

 I was happy to learn that my piece Forest Floor: Tree Bark Fragments, var. 10 was accepted into Quilt National 2025. It is always an honor and ALWAYS unexpected.  I thought I might write a bit about the process of the development of the 3 pieces I entered this year and the trials and tribulations of doing dimensional work for something like this.

Tree Bark Fragments, var. 9

Forest Floor, Tree Bark fragments, var. 10 (the QN piece)

Forest Floor, Tree Bark Fragments. var. 11

I created 3 pieces for submission all starting with pieces of tree bark or branches that I have picked up on my walks through woods.  My first challenge is to figure out how to enlarge them as images  and maintaining what is intriguing about them, and then  how they might translate as large, sculptural or dimensional pieces.  The three I chose were of plane (or sycamore) bark, the second, birch bark and the third a piece of warped and twisted tree branch.  I take photos of them, enlarge and manipulate in Photoshop and then print through Spoonflower.  Often I have to divide images to make the requirement for printing work and then reassemble.

When I get the printed fabric, it often "translates" in a way that I did not expect.  It gets fuzzy, or the colors are wrong, or the size is too much or too litlte or any number of things.  But when it is right I can start to figure out how best to move it along.

In the case of the Quilt National piece, it involved 7 different plane tree fragments, each related but different, each about 12 inches wide and 3.5 to 4 feet long.  I try a number of approaches, testing backings, stitching, distressing.  On this piece I ended up backing with a colored felt and stitching with 2 threads at a time through needle in a free motion way to build texture and densities.  The stitching on the felt backing adds dimensions when the pieces are stiffened and shaped.  

The next step is to shape them and start to arrange them as one assemblage.

Next challenge - photographing them so that the shapes are emphasized with light and shadow.

Next challenge after that is getting all the photos ready to upload and doing all the submission work.

Then you wait and don't build your hopes up. :-)

When I got the acceptance notice that the var. 10 was accepted, I then had to work out a hanging diagram (as it was not going to work with a hanging rod pocket) and  figure out how to prep it to ship in a sturdy but economical way.  In the end I took photos of each step of the prep for shipping and wrote a document to Quilt National about how to unwrap, display and re-wrap for shipping.

I often forget in the enthusiasm at the start of a piece all the many, and often, not so much fun, steps that are required to actually get a piece to the finish line!

I hope some of you will get to go to Quilt National next summer and be inspired by the variety of the work that is there.  I hope to get there in 2025 and see my work with fresh eyes.

And maybe do some nice flat work for awhile :-)