Hen Spigot Quilts – Deborah Watkins

I began my work for the Limerick exhibition by sewing a quilt. I love working with different materials and I enjoy the way one material often feeds into another. The art of quilting served as a gateway into this project for me. My chosen artefact is tiny and I wanted to explore it up close and play with scale at the same time. I needed to make something big and colourful and I wasn’t ready to make any objects in clay just yet.

I started by making several drawings. Next, I simplified the shapes and projected my chosen image onto the wall to blow it up in size. I made a large painting from this, adding colour to highlight the main features. I decided early on to use just a few colours with black and I kept to this formula throughout the project. Colour generates a sense of fun that reflects the joyful character of the artefact. Black is a contrast like a shadow and a reminder that joy doesn’t exist without its opposite.

The quilt sections were worked out on paper and I made patterns to cut out sections of fabric. I used a sewing machine to join the shapes together – these stitches are invisible on the front. There is also a plain panel on the back and a sandwich of cotton wadding in between. I learned how to make a wide border to stay true to my original drawings – traditional quilt work has a narrower edge. I attached a triangular banner to the border at the base to give it a festive character.

I added text to the quilt top later and this served to tell the story of the spigot. ‘Monabraher’ is the town land where it was found in Limerick. ‘Kipje’ means ‘ Little Hen’ in Dutch – it is thought to have originated in Western Europe in either Holland or Germany. The numerals at the bottom are an approximate time line ( century ) when the piece was made. I used a technique called couching to make lengths of string into words and I sewed these to the fabric with loops of thread. I really enjoyed learning new techniques along the way as I made these quilts.

Drawing of a hen made on the app procreate

Initial drawing of the hen spigot made on ‘Procreate’

Large scale painting of the design

The final ‘quilt top’ pieced together in fabric with added text

As soon as I finished this quilt I wanted to make another one! I was conscious of the fact that the first piece was literal in character, so I decided that the next one should be more abstract. I played around with some designs on the ‘Procreate’ app, setting myself the challenge of making something that reflects the character of the hen without using the motif directly. I wanted to incorporate circles to reflect the giant eye and confident curves to suggest the jaunty outline. I used different fabrics to add interest and I appliquéd irregular black circles to the bottom section. I don’t like symmetry or rulers so everything is drawn and made by eye. At one point I was tempted to ‘even out’ the yellow moon shape and I tried this but I discovered that the energy in the piece was completely lost, so I reverted to the original. There’s something about the imperfection of the drawing that suggests movement like a bounce and this was absent in a perfect semi circle. I really enjoy this kind of discovery.

The second quilt design as a painting

The second quilt in fabric on my kitchen floor.

My third quilt came from an idea for a pot or perhaps the pot came from the quilt, I’m not sure which.

Drawings made on the ‘Procreate’ app

I chose orange and black for this one. I used yellow for the border in the painting but switched to black for the final quilt.

My third quilt as a painting – I’ve just noticed that I’m dressed like my quilts in some of these..

The third quilt in fabric. I’ve started stitching the layers together here in a running stitch that shadows the orange moon shape.

Quilting is the final process and it draws all the layers together with hand stitching. I used a range of techniques including a long running stitch, the Amish wave stitch, French knots and concentric circles. I used matching threads for each of the blocks of colour so the colour sections remain clear.