Earlier this week, we shared Paula Nadelstern's new More Is MORE collection with you. It's fabulous, isn't it? Today we're sharing the details behind the fabric line with you. Keep reading as Paula walks through the different fabrics, explaining what inspired their design and how she sees them being used. Enjoy!
Where did the More Is MORE name come from?
In 1996 I wrote my first book for C&T titled Kaleidoscopes
& Quilts.” That fall I was thrilled to be at Quilt Market in the C&T
booth. I sat down with my black, fine-pointed, permanent pen and realized I had
to quickly come up with a catchy personal phrase to sign in the book. I wrote:
REMEMBER! When it comes to fabric, more is MORE! At the time I didn’t know the
phrase would turn into a trademark slogan that I would continue to use for the
next twenty-two years, signing over 60,000 copies of six different C&T
titles. Or that the sixteenth quilt in my KALEIDOSCOPIC series, titled More is
MORE, would be voted among the “100 Best American Quilts of the 20th Century”
by a national panel of quilt experts in 1999. It is now in the collection of
The American Museum of Folk Art.
How do you vary your kaleidoscope medallions from collection
to collection?
The More is MORE
Medallions have a different layout than previous collections. Instead of two
sizes of Medallions, each 24” paneI yields four 10” mandalas (two each of two
different designs), six 7” mandalas (three each of two different designs) and four
4” mandalas (two each of two different designs). I recommend purchasing two
panels instead of a single 24” panel so you’ll have more repeats. Please note, cutting
the pattern at 36” instead of 24” will cut a Medallion in half.
Can you talk about the color palette?
Colorwise, my intent was
to include more neutral or white or what I call “seam foam” into the palette. The
Sea Foam concept is one of my design strategies, a personal favorite.
It’s my go-to method to brighten up and energize a design. For some universal
reason, the eternal ebb and flow of
white frothy swells against a dark shimmering sea is simultaneously stimulating and soothing. I think it’s because the staccato rhythm of foaming
whitecaps compels the eyes to move
around in a very satisfying way, searching
for the next frothy swell. I usually want to introduce this
same lively quality my quilts. Don’t assume that using a fabric with a light-colored background will animate a
design. Placing a light-colored fabric next
to a dark one will cause
a blatant line of contrast
which may stop the visual motion not increase it. If you want to shed light onto your
quilt, let the fabric do it. Choose fabrics with luminous, light-colored motifs
that stand out against their darker backgrounds,
like these Mandalas.
How did the Rabbit Hole print get its name?
Designing this
pattern was like going down the figurative rabbit hole. Each level of complexity
lead to another until it became difficult to stop myself from pursuing an
additional detail here, a doodle there, which led to more…and more… patterning.
But in the end, this assortment of motifs doesn’t seem nonsensical or
confusing. I feel like it will never cease to yield more….and
more…possibilities.
Can you talk about how you envision the stripe being
used?
Stripe-Adelic is elegant and wacky at the same time with its strong sense of movement and playfulness. In each collection, I try to invent a pattern that fits the category I call Directionals. A Directional slides the eye from here to there, forming visual pathways that instill an element of motion. A stripe is an expressive tool because each basic direction has its own personality. Horizontal lines move the eye across the field, imparting calmness and stability, calling to mind both the horizon and our sleeping posture. Vertical lines are more visually active, suggestive of plant life that grows from the ground up. Diagonal lines, slanting from corner to corner or radiating from the center out, are energetic, implying imminent change. Keep this in mind and aim Stripe-Adelic in any direction.
Stripe-Adelic is elegant and wacky at the same time with its strong sense of movement and playfulness. In each collection, I try to invent a pattern that fits the category I call Directionals. A Directional slides the eye from here to there, forming visual pathways that instill an element of motion. A stripe is an expressive tool because each basic direction has its own personality. Horizontal lines move the eye across the field, imparting calmness and stability, calling to mind both the horizon and our sleeping posture. Vertical lines are more visually active, suggestive of plant life that grows from the ground up. Diagonal lines, slanting from corner to corner or radiating from the center out, are energetic, implying imminent change. Keep this in mind and aim Stripe-Adelic in any direction.
What makes the Mosaic print so user-friendly?
Mosaic is an All-over
print. All-overs are nondirectional designs with a forgiving temperament that
look the same from any angle. There is no implicit top, bottom, left, or right.
My litmus test to check for a true All-over is to randomly fold the fabric and
look to see if the juncture where the end meets the rest of the fabric is
noticeable or disappears. If the juncture is visible, the design might be too
directional for the desired purpose. When
a true All-over, like Mosaic, is randomly folded on itself, the junction where
the two areas meet disappears.
What details do you like best in Fusion?
As soon
as I looked up at the Prague Spanish Synagogue Ceiling, I knew I’d found a
quilt idea. Here was a glut of architectural designs filled with patterns bumping
into each other. I saw the ceiling in 2014 and finished the quilt in 2018,
using over 80 different fabrics I’d designed with Benartex in the past 20
twenty years. Click here to see it.
For an approximately
10” x 20” area toward the quilt’s center bottom, I pieced together about 50
patches from 9 different fabrics from different collections. Of course, I’m
counting in hindsight and now that’s the quilt is quilted, sometimes I can’t
even find the seams.
I got the
idea that this section might be the foundation for a brand-new fabric. About
fifty tweaks later it turned into FUSION, which is defined as the process of
joining things together to form a single entity.
Click here to see the entire More Is MORE collection.
Click here to see more photos of More Is More.
Wow, what beautiful fabrics. Would love to see them in person.
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