Dresden Citrus

Art

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The National Quilt Museum

Name/Title

Dresden Citrus

Description

Block: Dresden Plate

Made/Created

Artist

Teresa Schulz

Place

City

Lansing

State/Province

Michigan

Country

United States

Continent

North America

Interpretative Labels

Label

"In Dresden Citrus, the traditional Dresden plate was deconstructed and rearranged into an array of citrus slices in an original quilt design. Citrus fruits were selected as the food inspiration because they are always colorful and refreshing. Their innate "juiciness" inspired me to seek out high-sheen focus fabrics (Michael Moore's Fairy Frost 100% cotton metallic "pearlized" collection) and lustrous threads (EdMar 100% rayon custom-dyed Brazilian Embroidery Thread) to simulate the colors and textures of five succulent citrus: lemons, limes, naval oranges, blood oranges and pink grapefruits. The Dresden plate was selected as the "old favorite" quilt block because of its natural similarity to the radial symmetry of citrus slices. The inspiration for the overall design came from my interest in another "old favorite" of mine -- the abstract modern art of the early 20th century – specifically the work of Sonia Delauney – whose dynamic and colorful circular forms diverged from the flat and straight-lined Cubist paintings of the time."

General Notes

Note Type

Techniques Used

Note

Custom Templates (making a template for each citrus segment using compass, protractor & rules from original design). Machine piecing (connecting citrus segments together and assembling the rays & arcs that make up the brown background). Hand applique (attaching citrus slices to white background, attaching slices to brown background, and assembling the "arcs" in the background). Hand dying (re-coloring various brown patterned fabric scraps with brown RIT dye to give them more similar hues). Salt-texturing (scattering Epsom salts on still-wet brown dyed fabric scraps to give them a subtle but interesting background design). Trapunto (stuffing citrus rinds with wool roving to give them a raised appearance); Hand embroidery (quilting throughout the citrus segments using the single lazy daisy (detached chain) embroidery stitch -- note that the "traveling stitch" between single chains is hidden in the batting so as not to show in the back). Hand quilting (sewing straight stitches to fill in citrus membranes & pith, as well as in brown background). Piping (inserting cord into folded white fabric to make custom piping for the inside of the orange binding).

Note Type

Materials Used

Note

Michael Moore's Fairy Frost collection of 100% cotton fabrics with pearlized metallic accents were selected for their “juicy” look and were used to make the Dresden plate/citrus segments representing limes, lemons, naval oranges, blood oranges and pink grapefruits. White-on-white cotton fabric was used in between the Dresden plate segments to represent the rough, pithy citrus membranes and rinds. Various brown cotton fabric scraps were hand dyed with brown RIT dye and textured with Epsom salts to be pieced into the scrappy background. This was done to make the background more uniform (so it truly recedes into the "background) but more interesting when examined more closely). White pearl cotton was used to quilt the white membranes, pith, and central column of each citrus slice. This was selected because the stitching would help simulate the rough texture of these pithy membranes. Ed Mar 100% rayon Brazilian custom-dyed embroidery thread was used to quilt the membrane segments with single lazy daisy (detached chain) stitches. This thread was selected for its sheen, which enhances the overall “juiciness” of the segments, and the stitch was selected to simulate the individual juice sacs in each segment. Wool roving was used to stuff the citrus rinds and give them a raised appearance (trapunto). Thin cotton cord was used to make custom white piping to add inside the binding, finishing the quilt with its own "rind."