I consider myself a contemporary traditionalist when it comes to quilting. Much of my work is based on traditional quilt blocks — such as Card Trick, Mariner’s Compass, and Eight-Pointed Star. By using modern cottons, hand-dyed fabrics, border prints, and fussy-cutting, my work has a very contemporary feel. In the last few years, I’ve been adapting Chinese lattice designs to quilting. These designs have been used in China for thousands of years, so I am basing my work on an old tradition. See my article in American Quilter, Spring, 1998.
My bargello designs go back to the needlepoints of the Middle Ages; but in my color-shift bargellos, I am making use of all the marvelous new designs being used in modern cottons, including batiks and metallics. These color-shifts have at least 90 different fabrics and often more than 200. My approach to color-shift bargello designs is described in American Quilter, Fall, 2001.
I have been quilting since 1978 and teaching since 1987. While living in Boston, I was a member of the Proper Bostonian Quilters. Now, I’m a member of the Common Threads Quilt Guild in Topsfield, Massachusetts; the East Coast Quilters Alliance; and the American Quilter’s Society. I have had quilts in the Vermont Quilt Festival (a third place ribbon); the New England Images shows; and the East Coast Quilters Alliance, A Quilter’s Gathering (a blue ribbon on a bargello jacket in 1998 and a white ribbon for hand quilting in 2001).
From 1999 through 2002, I was the proprietor of The Quilted Gallery in Rocky Neck Art Colony, Gloucester, Massachusetts. While there, I explored new ideas in my own work and met many wonderful people! I’ll miss my studio overlooking Smith Cove, but have now set up a studio in my home.
I enjoy giving slide shows, trunk shows, and workshops to quilt guilds and other groups.
Ann S. Lainhart