Backing Day is Tuesday, August 31st!

Here's a reminder from your friendly neighborhood Cotton Patch that Backing Day is this Tuesday, August 31st! 

If you're new here and don't know what Backing Day is...

Bring in your finished quilt tops (100% complete, no more borders to add, done) on the last day of the month and receive 25% off your backing of choice, even Clearance!

The usual rules apply:

• If the last day of the month falls on a Sunday when we're closed, then Backing Day is the day before (Saturday). 
• Discount valid on single-fabric backings only.  Sorry, this is not valid on several cuts of different fabrics for a pieced backing.  
  
• Sale prices not combinable with any other offer (this includes deals from Five Stars, redeeming points, and coupons)
• Sale prices good in-store only on the sale day and limited to stock on-hand. 

We can't wait to see what you've created - see you on the 31st!

The Elements of Art (in Quilting!) Part VI: Form

Form and Shape are close, close buddies and often find themselves overlapping.  Form is the physical, three dimensional shape of the piece, or the effect of three dimensions on a two dimensional surface. Where to the eye a basketball is a circle, to the hand it is a sphere. That's really the basic differentiation.  

MC Escher was a master of using Shape and Form together in the same piece visually.  You see the shape of the arms on the paper, but the hands have taken three-dimensional Form.  

Form takes Shape a step further and determines size and function too.  For a quilt, it is a very important thing to consider - does it need to be large enough to fit a California King bed, or is it just meant to hang on the wall? How much loft do you want to your batting? Are there any three dimensional additions to your quilt, changing it's Form - buttons, ribbons, Trapunto, folding? Do you want certain blocks to jump out that the observer, appearing three dimensional?

A tumbling Block quilt is a great example of visual form, and Art quilts are famous for incorporating three-dimensional forms to the work.  Here's some good examples of Form in quilts:

Have you ever made an art quilt with 3D components?  What would you use to give your quilt and added layer of Form?  Tell us about it in the comments below!

The Elements of Art (in Quilting!) Part V: Shape

This week is short and sweet and all about Shape.  Shape defines the visual delineations of an object, and is determined by line or color. A shape is always two dimensional, and can either be geometric (with straight sides) or organic (with curved or irregular sides). To the eye, the outline of a basketball is a circle, the outline of a door is a rectangle, and the outline of a leaf is a variable, organic shape that is characterized only by that species of plant. 

Quilters use shape when deciding how they want their quilt to look - do they want their quilt square, rectangular, octagonal, square with rounded corners, circular, rectangular with scalloped edges? Shape is very closely related to, and often dictates, Form (which we'll look at next time in more detail!). One of the most common ways we see this is with scallops.   

But one of the fun things we can do is disrupt the shape - this is one of my favorite examples:

We can also create shape within a quilt by messing with our seams and lines to trick the eye into seeing shapes which aren't actually there.  A great example of this is the traditional Storm at Sea setup.  See how it looks like there's curves in there?  There's not! It's all straight lines at angles which trick the eye into thinking there's curves.  

How to do you like to play with shape in your quilts? Have you ever tried a scallop or beveled finish?  Share in the comments below!