Honestly, all pieced quilts begin with fracturing fabric. Fabrics are chosen, cut into pieces, and sewn together again, and again. In all my years quilting, however, it wasn’t until this summer (2013) that I was introduced to the concept of fracturing fabric in this manner.
We were visiting Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons when I strolled into a quilt shop in Jackson Hole, WY and a quilt caught my attention. I’d not seen anything like it before and I wanted to understand how it was made. I asked if they had a pattern or book that explained the technique used and was told, “no”, however, the quilt maker was on site and I was able to talk with her for a few minutes. I took notes on the back of the store’s business card and couldn’t wait to jump into giving this technique a try.
Once home I purchased fabrics and with just a few notes on “how”, I began experimenting. Before you know it I had completed a few of my own fractured quilts and finished them off with thread painting accentuating the key elements of the finished quilt top’s design. The more I made, the more elaborate my thread painting became. I love that each one is truly an original, whether twice or four-times fractured.
Like my Kaleidoscoped quilts, it could be said of my Fractured quilts, “The fabric made me do it!”
These quilts, each one, began with one fabric that so moved my fascination that I just “had to” fracture them.
Interesting side note: Since I began this process, I was shown a book on the subject of “fractured” quilts, though I am sorry to say had I been introduced to this book first I doubt I would have ever have explored this process.
November 2018 Update: I’d long ago bought his book, but finally found fabrics that inspired me to give Ricky Tims’ Convergence Quilts a try. What a surprise to discover these convergence quilts are really just a very simplified version of fracturing quilts. These begin with 4 different fabrics, instead of 4 pieces of the same fabric and they come together much faster. So excited to have found another way to create unique 1-of-a-kind quilts, inspired by the selected fabrics.
Below are some of my personal favorites. To see all my fractured quilts, click on the My Fabulously Fractured and Convergence Quilts tab in Sue’s Quilt Gallery on the right.
