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Imagine Peace, app. 80 x 80, by Linda S. Schmidt, 2015 Pacific International Quilt Festival.
From Dublin, California, Linda S. Schmidt is the 2003 national "Quilt Teacher of the Year" award winner. She is a prolific art quilter, having won more than 300 ribbons in local, national, and international quilting exhibitions. Coming from a long line of quilting women, Linda has been quilting since she was 8 years old and has made all of her own clothes since she was 12 years old. Linda's work is so extensive, that this past year, 2015, she was given her own one-woman show-within-a-show titled, "The 'Whatever It Takes School of Quilting' Exhibit" at the Pacific International Quilt Festival.
We loved this stunning full size work, in which the earth sits cradled in a large hand with multicolored fingers. Linda has done an outstanding job of combining the soft, pastel watercolor shades in a modified "Trip Around the World" background pattern, with brightly colored threads and a vibrant array of fabrics in the foreground.
Closeup, Imagine Peace On Our Planet
Into the border, Linda has added lavender squares of fabric on all four sides, which say "Imagine Peace on Our Planet. " If you look carefully along the top of the quilt, you can see the lavender blocks which faintly spell out the word "PEACE" in capital letters.Linda writes, "What if everyone did Imagine Peace on Our Planet ?........ we would all be working together, blending together in a rainbow of color to make one giant hand to support our world in all its magnificent differences."
Closeup, Imagine Peace on Our Planet
In this close-up, you can see the lovely metallic fabrics and threads used to construct the little finger of the giant hand. We really admire Linda's gorgeous details in this quilt. For example, the quilting pattern of the fingertip, is done in a spiral pattern to replicate an actual fingerprint, which brings a realistic touch to this most imaginative quilt.
To see more of Linda's fabulous work, please check out her website Short Attention Span Quilting. In one of her essays posted there, she writes some very inspirational words on why quilters choose to quilt:
" I think it's because quilting is Art, and because it is Art, we can't not do it. Oh, I have tried to get out of it. I told myself,..."that quilt you want to make is just too complicated. It's going to be too much work, you don't have the time, you don't have the right fabric, and furthermore, you don't have the skills and know-how to do it right.' By the time I admitted to myself that I really was going to take my somewhat questionable creative talents, ...expensive fabric, and a considerable portion of my life making this quilt, it had sprung to life in my inner vision, and all I had to do was reach in and pull it out - fully formed. .... You know the vision of your next quilt won't go away, it will simply keep getting stronger and clearer until you DO have the time to get back to it. The fabrics then, will simply LEAP out of the stash onto the design wall, and you won't be able to stop them."
