apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

they're beautiful, especially the first one.
waaaaay out of my price range, though.

I'd love to spend a night sleeping on this veranda.

That picture makes me want to go to bed sooooo badly!

I find the name of this quilt strangely irritating.

If you are familiar with traditional quilt patterns, the name becomes more humorous than irritating -- at least for me. It is a play on the traditional double-wedding ring pattern. I've had the single girl/ring quilt on my wishlist for awhile now.

Ditto to Norma. It's a play on the Wedding Ring quilt pattern.

I'm happy to see that Schmidt has established a true U.S.-based quiltmaking business, that's a significant feat alone, kudos to her! If the price seems high it's because paying a fair wage does cost...

What I'm boggled by is the effusive praise for Schmidt's designs when they are clearly derived from classic Prairie & Amish quiltmakers (often much simplified). Her fabrics are lovely but the pieced quilt designs themselves are standard, for the most part beginner designs, easy to piece a top in a day or two, easy to machine quilt or hand quilt while you're watching TV. Literally thousands of quilt guilds and fabric shops in North America where you could learn the basics and your local library generally carries a lot of beginner quilting books as well. If her vines mystify you, that's likely a bias cut strip of fabric, usually with a fusible web backing, that you can iron into place as you twist and bend the fabric and then sew down later (it looks mysterious but is a blissfully easy technique to learn... one of my favorites).

So 'outstanding textile artist', really, Apartment Therapy are you sure about that? To me here's what represents outstanding textile art:

The Quilter’s of Gee’s Bend:
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/other/geesbend/explore/catalog/slideshow/index.htm
These quilts are deceptively simple, and so the traveling exhibition did garner occasional harsh critique, but as the exhibition traveled I saw the quilts up close (front and back) and heard the stories of the women... it’s a memorable guild with a few very fine modern pieces by specific makers. These women were cut off from anyone who could have told them that what they were creating was artistically ‘right’ or wrong’ so the work was intuitive and spontaneous.

And two of my favorite textile artists are:
Michael James:
http://www.unl.edu/mjames_quilts/index.html
Flip through his site and you’ll see his current pieces first and his later pieces In Situ.

Hollis Chatelain
(yes, these really are textile works and not paintings or photographs):
http://www.hollisart.com/gallery.php
Painted on whole cloth and quilted. Up close they are quite remarkable. I especially love Blue Men.

BTW, for the earlier work (In Situ) by Michael James, those were generally commercially available fabrics. For the more current works he's designing and printing the fabric himself.

These are labeled Schmidt, but not made by her. She is just pimping her name for a fee, the way Vera Wang is now doing with mattresses.

Note the "imported" label at the end of the Pottery Barn description. These are very traditional (read, royalty-free) designs and in no way reflect her modernist art aesthetic.

I guess once you know what you are, the only thing to discuss is price.

I like those quilts. I looked through Denyse Schmidt's website and I like her designs. That's what it's about, right?

Guess what? Many of the Amish quilts that find their way to market these days are made in huge quilting factories run by Mennonite businessmen. The majority of the work is made outside the country (in Mexico or China) and then sent in to the US factory where they "finish" it and then put it out to craft stalls saying "Amish made". It's a far cry from driving through the Pennsylvania countryside in the early 80's and seeing highly unique Amish designs hanging on clotheslines that you could sometimes convince the quilter to sell to you.

I have no qualms about a textile artist licensing out her name to make a living. After all, wanting to make a living strictly by ones art is the goal of every artist so why is that "pimping your name for a fee"? We should all be so lucky as Vera Wang etc. I do, however, agree with Rucy and quiltmaster that these quilts are basic and not indicative of Schmidt's work.
Katy
http://fengshuibyfishgirl.com

RobinD., if all you're doing is looking for an aesthetically pleasing quilt, yes. If you're responding to a claim about an outstanding textile artist, when what's being shown is very basic not-at-all-original quilt designs, then no. If it's about design, show me real design.

Fishgirl, I agree, the whole outsourcing of the Amish is a shame (just to clarify for others I was referring to classic Amish quilt "patterns" or "designs").

Love Denyse's quilts...she is featured in House Beautiful and happy to see the single girl is now at Pottery Barn. Pricey, but it will go on sale soon enough!!!

Rucy, I agree that Denyses quilts are aesthetically pleasing.

Denyse's choice of fabrics (each of which is individually well designed IMHO), the selection of "standard" pieced blocks, the scale of the "standard" designs, the placement of them, the choice of quilting (how the layers are sandwiched together) and so on, and so forth. A lot of decisions go into a quilt and I heart her choices.

As an advanced seamstress, I am capable of couture level, although I mostly sew quick & easy garments. I am very comfortable making all the little decisions that go into the garments I wear.

When it comes to quilting- I bow down to Denyse, Anna Maria Horner, Amy Butler and many, many others. Their designs delight me and they are design skills I simply don't possess. My own quilt designs make me laugh and say, oh well I will layer it under the pretty duvet I bought! LOL.

As far as textile artists, there are a few I like:
I think Luke Haynes is amazing.
http://www.lukehaynes.com/
And Amy Ahlstrom
http://amyahlstrom.com/index.html

And I am sure there are many more (I tend to focus on garment sewing, myself).

My humble opinion is that just cuz it looks easy might mean it is really a great design, and that is not necessarily easy.

She sells this quilt patter on her official web site.

If you're looking for "modern" quilts, try SAQA:

http://www.saqa.com/

Most all the quilts meet the definition of modern, by the quilt world's standards, in that most don't use traditional quilt piecing patterns. Only a subset, however, meet the definition of 'modern' by interior design or standard art world definition.

Well worth looking through their gallery as it's a great cross-section of various artist's work.