How to Improvise: Modern Quilting from the Perspectives of Doreen Speckmann and Victoria Findlay Wolfe

The use of kits and “how-to’s” has contributed to the proliferation of the Modern Quilt Movement. These readily accessible tools have helped bridge the divide between seeing and making, encouraging quilters to elaborate on traditional quilt patterns and to improvise in their home studios. Within the movement are renowned quilters who through their own classes, templates, books, and kits have inspired this new generation. Essential to modern quilting is improvisation. It is not surprising, therefore, that Doreen Speckmann and Victoria Findlay Wolfe, two influencers of the movement, have titled books with the word “play.” Speckmann rose to prominence in the 1980s and ‘90s for her inventive interpretations of traditional quilt patterns. She published her first how-to book Pattern Play in 1993, and thus introduced variations on historic quilt blocks such as “Peaky and Spike” and “Wingy Things,” as well as teaching her imaginative patterns worldwide. Findlay Wolfe, renowned for her signature versions of the difficult double-wedding-ring pattern, has inspired quilters to play with color, pattern, and design. The author of four books on quilt making, including the most recent Playing with Purpose (2019), Findlay Wolfe teaches throughout the U.S. and has designed her own fabrics, thread packets, acrylic shape templates, and die cuts. This presentation will examine the careers of these two artists to understand the role they have played within the continuum of modern quilting, and the effect they have had in broadening the idea of what quilts can be by making improvisational quilting available to the modern quilter.