This lovely door is from the medieval Church of St.
Trophime in Arles, France.
This church was built between the 12th and 15th centuries, and is a great example of Romanesque architecture.
It was built on the site of a 5th century basilica.
However, the first time I saw this entrance, all I could see was a quilt!
In October when I went on a tour to the Quilt Museum in LaGrange Texas, there was a vintage applique quilt that looked just like this door - but with mint green branches and an ivory background! Honest!
When I look at this set of heavy wooden doors and wrought iron artwork, I see pieced strips with applique.
Do you think this is Hawaiian applique, or Baltimore Album applique, or...
?
When I travel, I take lots of design reference photos like this one.
I love to think about taking ancient or vintage design motifs, and making them new again.
Do you have photos from a past trip, that might render some inspiring
design ideas? Do you like to take photos of "pretty" architectural
details, that might be translated into fabric?
When I look at this photo and imagine the quilt I might make, I am imagining the white trees as applique, on a frosty blue background.
What do you see when you look at this design?
I spent our entire trip to Italy taking pictures of iron balcony railings, marble floors, beautiful doors and even stained glass ceilings! Thank goodness my husband shot the usual "historic" sites or no one would know we had even been there. I simply love old architecture...so beautiful.
Posted by: Jill Hix | 01/24/2013 at 08:30 AM
This reminds me so much of Kirkwell Cathedral Orkney. I love doorways, especially ancient ones. Had a church door unlocked for us to go through recently with the same old lock that had been there since 1600s and the key was six inches long. They don't make them like that any more.There's art everywhere for the artist in us to spot.
Posted by: C Soares | 01/23/2013 at 06:29 AM
When I look at this (and many other designs) I think how beautiful it would look in hand embroidery stitches. The small oval shapes would be lazy daisy stitches and the dots would be French knots. I'd probably do the curvy lines in split stitch.
Posted by: Robbin Jensen | 01/22/2013 at 06:17 PM
WOW! What a beautiful idea for applique, doing the door scroll work with applique in a black fabric, looking like wrought iron. You could also come out with a line of fabrics and use the door as a panel and have ivy vines climbing up the door, fairies??? JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings? If I were an artist of fabrics I would love to be let loose to use those doors as a whole fantasy world!!
Posted by: Glori Blanchard | 01/17/2013 at 06:16 PM
Isnt that door amazing? Ive seen it before and saved the photo just to use in a quilt. Either as applique or as a whole cloth quilting design. So pretty. Your so lucky to see these things in person. Thanks for sharing!
Posted by: Kate | 01/16/2013 at 01:34 PM
We were just in the Galapagos Isalnds. The lava flows there were inspiring to me. I can see a black, white and RED quilt with these incredible swirls and lines, etc.
Posted by: Linda Brush | 01/16/2013 at 08:24 AM
When I travel, I take pictures of floors. Church floors, hotel carpets, anything that looks like a quilt. The beautiful geometrics on the floors look like they are taken directly from a quilt--although I am sure the opposite is true since many of the floors predate our pieced quilts.
I also take pictures of ironwork and grillwork because you never know...
Posted by: Lynne Capehart | 01/16/2013 at 07:41 AM
I've paused a frame on a TV show so I could take a photo of the what;s on the screen to use as a quilt inspiration!
Posted by: Jean | 01/16/2013 at 07:36 AM
Thanks for this post about architecture .
I used old farm doors in Alsace (east part do France) for a quilt.
Pictures could be seen on my Flickr gallery
http://www.flickr.com/photos/odileb/sets/72157625623931244/
Regards
Posted by: Berget | 01/16/2013 at 02:21 AM