Jess Wheelahan: Bounce

There were hundreds of fabulous quilts on display at the Sydney Quilt Show this year and we’ve invited all the makers to share the story behind their quilt. We all like to know more than can fit on the quilt tag, right?

Jess Wheelahan offered the story behind her quilt, Bounce.

 (Click or tap to enlarge image.)

“Bounce is a quilt of many parts. 30 rows of 30 blocks with an average of 17 pieces per square adds up to around 15,300 itty bitty pieces! It was not built in a day!”

So how did she start making such so many blocks? “I started piecing little 5cm x 5cm squares celebrating stripes and bold solid colours during the Christmas holidays. I liked the illusion that the stripes were possibly pieced and dug through my stash for as many different stripey combinations as I could find.”

Jess discovered that Dutch wax prints were a treasure trove for fussy-cut possibilities as were her husband’s old shirts. “Kaffe and Marimekko scraps did not disappoint and then I discovered Tula pink’s very fluoro striped range. The process was joyous and while I was using stashed fabrics, I was also using up the little pieces of solids which get trimmed in the process of making improv blocks.”

Like lots of busy quilters balancing family, work and fabric, Jess grabbed sewing time here and there. “The number of blocks I had made soon grew through chain piecing about 20 at a time and approaching each as if it was its own exclusive ecosystem. This one yellow like a vanilla slice, this one the colours of a parrot, this one turquoise like the water in Tahiti… and so on. Round and round I went!

“I pieced them on little squares of interfacing and then plonked them on the ironing board. During the evenings after dinner in front of the TV, I pressed them and then trimmed them using a 5cm template.”

At this point Jess wasn’t sure how the blocks would go together. She used the design wall to try out different layouts using colour as her guide and posting progress shots on Instagram as she went.

“I had been researching the Op artwork of Victor Vasarely and Bridget Riley and was especially taken with the colour- based works of Vasarely which are set out in squares and so are easily relatable to the process of quilt making. I worked from the centre out to create a layout dictated by colour gradient, hue and value. This entailed a lot of pinning and standing back, squinting and moving things around. The colour placement makes the eye jump from one place to another within the quilt as though each block is a tiny trampoline.”

Once Jess was set on the layout, she pinned each row to a strip of interfacing and stitched the squares together in rows. “This was a commitment,” Jess says. “I completed the quilt top by the June long weekend, and I pinned it and proceeded to hand quilt each square using 12wt Aurifil thread. The back is a lightweight blue voile with a colour flaw I salvaged from the fashion industry and the binding is a woven striped hot pink fabric.”

Jess was excited that Bounce received a Judges’ Commendation in its category Modern Traditional and thrilled with the way that the audience engaged with the work.

“A smaller version (just 25 blocks which I had made as a study) has since been selected into the Little Things Art Prize which will be on at Project Gallery 90, Queen Street Woollahra between 10-14 October.” You can also see more of Jess’ quilts on Instagram @birdie_beetle

We’d like to hear the story behind your quit, too. Email Erica to get started. I promise it’s not scary!