WHY ZEN CHIC INSPIRED WILL MAKE YOU A BETTER MODERN QUILTER - PART 2

In last week's blog post I already introduced my new quilt book ZEN CHIC INSPIRED, A GUIDE FOR THE MODERN QUILTER.

I talked about what is Zen Chic Inspired and for whom I wrote this book. And I also showed you a little sneak peek inside and a video about my design process.

And then I told you about that fun evening when my quilt buddies came up with a

CHALLENGE 

the challenge, that all of them start by a picture of a room. To have that same room as the resource for all of them. And following the advise from ZEN CHIC INSPIRED everyone would create her own idea from this inspirational room. That was the goal.

So here is our next contribution:

THE SECOND QUILT IDEA IN THE SERIES

is from Ulrike Stephan. Ulrike joined our Modern Quilt Guild when we started in 2012. By that time the more modern world of quilting was quite new for her, but she became very interested and she likes to explore more and more modern ideas.

Starting by the same picture as Karin did (here it is as a reference)

she chose her colors and sketched some ideas. First she thought of a table runner, but liked in the end a square format better. Playing with design elements (she also found the lampshades appealing, but her design element is a smaller half circle with a large half circle) she made two first little projects: 

Two coasters, about 5 1/2" x 5 1/2", quilted

But this was only a warming up, haha... 

She was in the mood to play around more and designed this so cool wall hanger. The two pictures show possible variations she was considering. She decided for the second picture.

CAN YOU SEE THE CONNECTING DOTS?

Both, Karin and Ulrike, created a similar color palette from the picture without even talking to each other or showing each other the work in process. That means, they got how to pick the colors from a picture, how to make a harmonious color scheme.

And both of them choose the half circle element for their design layout - because this is such an obvious shape to see in the picture. Although both did very different things with it.

I love how minimalist the quilt of Ulrike turned out; this is a brave quilt design.

AND WHAT DOES ULRIKE SAY ABOUT THE PROCESS?

Of course I wanted to know, what she was thinking about dealing with this challenge, with this task. And here is what she said:

Usually when starting a new project or a quilt for a specific room, I am lost and don't know where to begin, what to choose. And usually I end up with a shot in the dark, something random. I want to sew something, but I have no clue what exactly. Working on this challenge was very exciting, because all of a sudden I had so many hints and clues, a kind of guideline for my creative choices. And I can imagine, that this will work with all kind of pictures, e.g. landscapes or so, now when I know how to pick that color palette. Actually doing this exercise has opened my creativity and now I could go on and on. It was so much fun.

Thank you, Ulrike, for sharing your pictures and projects and for contributing to this challenge.