Stax Quilt

Designer Tula Pink showed how to make her quilt, Stax, on Sewing with Nancy a couple of weekends ago. My customer made a smaller version of it out of scraps (she, who is the Queen of Scraps!). Fun, and fast to do.

She asked for “something McTavish” in the background and to “tie” some of the larger squares to look like packages. (I must say, sometimes it is so nice when a customer knows exactly what she wants on her quilt. That said, having free-rein is really fun sometimes, too!)

First, Stitch in the Ditch laid all the boxes down nicely. Then, I free-handed the bows. I have recently watched a video (oh, my, I forget...maybe the APQS website...maybe not) which showed how to do something they called Swirl Doodle Fill. Oooh, I so loved the movement and the way it quickly filled up the areas. And, it has a decidedly McTavish look to it.

Karen McTavish. One of the most original and intriguing characters in the quilting world! She sports tattoos of quilted feathers and dreadlocks and has a unique voice and laugh – she's one of a kind. She designed her overall swirling backgrounds – referred to as McTavishing – from the works of Art Nouveau painter Alfonse Mucha. His lovely ladies had graceful, swirling heads of hair that anyone of us would kill to have (says the woman with the board-straight hair).

This is Mucha's poster selling JOB cigarettes. LOVE the hair!

There are as many forms of McTavishing as there are hands who quilt its lovely swaying textures. Some say you can read who the quilter is in the way she McTavishes.