Shadow Quilts

Authors Patricia Maixner Magaret and Donna Ingram Slusser both confess to a lifelong fascination with shadows dating back to shadowplay in early childhood. Naturally, this attraction eventually found its way into their quilts, adding an inventive element to otherwise traditional patterns. Shadow quilts, they explain, combine several visual layers of images to create a design. The smaller individual blocks compose one layer, while the shadow layer is a large motif that hovers in the background of the smaller blocks. Like an optical illusion, this shadow image is not immediately apparent but rewards the careful viewer gradually. Thus, for instance, an autumn leaves quilt consisting of 24 multicolored blocks of similar leaf designs camouflages a huge golden leaf residing behind them. The seemingly complex designs become quite attainable in the authors’ capable hands; good directions and photographs ensure that anyone with a working knowledge of traditional piecing and a dose of patience can create these enchanting designs.
Paperback, 112 pages