To piece the fish, I cut scraps of brightly-colored fabric from my stash and sewed them to foundation squares.
I created the central star and border out of strips of Christmas fabric from my inventory.
These squares were made using a “stack, slash, and shuffle” technique. After stacking squares, I cut through them at random. Then I took the top fabric of one of the pieces, put it on the bottom, and slashed again. The shuffling means no two patches are alike, but all fit together.
The central panel is a reproduction of a 1776 Tree-of-Life print that originally came from India. I added pieced borders using fabrics similar to those found in the late 18th-century and then hand quilted it. Since we have participated in 18th-century historical re-enactments for many years, it was educational to research quilt styles of that era.
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About the author
Marj Rush Hovde
Marj Rush Hovde comes from a long line of quiltmakers. In fact, quilts were the subject for her master’s thesis. She especially appreciates historical quilts and what they reveal about how ordinary people transformed available fabrics into visual art.
Beautiful work! Such interesting and unique quilts.
These are beautiful, Marj! I liked learning about the stack/slash/shuffle method.