My Favorite Quilts: Convergence by Mary Landon

I saw Mary Landon's quilt Convergence in August 2022 at the American Quilters Society show in Grand Rapids, MI.

In Free-Motion Mastery in a Month I talk about the 6 Basic Shapes that build all quilting designs. But if you really want to get minimalistic about it, you can reduce to only two shapes: a straight line and a curve. Even using just two simple shapes, your quilting can be stunning!

Here are some simple and really effective things Mary did to make her quilting really striking.

1) She defined areas with quilting.
Alternating straight lines with curved lines on the different colors helps to define the structure of the design.

2) Sometimes the quilting joins areas
On the right side of the quilt, notice how the wavy quilting overlays several different colored wedges, subtly unifying them around the large pink triangle.

3) On large areas, quilting subdivides the space.
This brought larger areas into proportion with smaller areas of the quilt in the
large brown triangle at top, large pink triangle at right, and orange triangle at left.

4) She used different widths between straight lines.
So often modern quilts are quilted with row after row of equally-spaced lines. But here the lines are placed at different widths, creating an interesting visual rhythm. There is a stronger sense of intentional design that I like. And, to my eye the rhythm of the lines suggests moldings around the ceiling and floor of a room which infuses the quilt with a just a tiny touch of traditionalism.

All in all, it's a wonderful use of two simple shapes to create a bold yet subtle quilting design. Great work, Mary!

Happy Quilting! ~ RaNae

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