Susan Byrnes prefers to draw with a rotary cutter over pencil or ink. Leaning over a desk in her Brooklyn studio, she'll carve into pieces of fabric, forming shapes that will later become the patterns in her ultra-modern quilts. "In doing that, there's a lot of happenstance, a lot of freeform," Byrnes explains. "Sometimes you have a pretty fleshed-out idea, and sometimes it's just off the cuff."
It's that creative process—which she has in common with the other members of her quilting group, known as Uncommon Threads—that's made the group's work garner attention. Their pieces are vibrant, fresh, and punchy, drawing you in immediately, so it's no wonder that their creations have been so well received that they're on exhibit in the Charles P. Rogers showroom in New York from now through Thanksgiving (November 28, FYI). The exhibit fittingly celebrates modern artisanship, which you can best see on display in the video above, where Byrnes and Uncommon Threads members Madeleine Appell and Shari Werner provide a glimpse inside their craft.
"When I got into quilting, that was it for me. I loved that the tactility, I loved everything about the process, and I never stopped," says Appell, who's been making quilts for 20 years now.
Uncommon Threads was founded after its members started getting to know each other in a quilting class. They began sharing their work with one another, offering critiques and suggestions that'd help them refine their designs—and inspire new ones. "We critique each other in a way that's not judgmental, it's helpful," Appell explains.
Their process alone is fascinating: After cutting out shapes—often out of plain black fabric—using rotary shears, they'll arrange them on a wall, moving the pieces around until they create a design they like, which becomes their template of sorts for the actual quilt. It's only once they've figured out the design that they typically start adding in colors, which they cut out and eventually sew together. "That part can be daunting, especially when you work in curves and circles," Byrnes adds.
"Sometimes I take a photograph of my work on the board, draw out my sewing lines so I can figure out how to construct it in a way that will stay as close as possible to the design I have on the board," Werner says. "Sometimes that's not possible, and you have to make modifications."
That's part of the reason why Uncommon Threads deems their work "improvisational," since they let it evolve as they go. They also see each project as a whole new way to express themselves through their art.
"It's answering a question that you may have inside yourself," Byrnes says. "What I'm doing lately, is a lot of times I'm pushing myself in directions I don't want to go in." Challenge accepted—and by the looks of their latest exhibit, conquered.
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