Sarah O. Green
Mountain Ash Designs - Sustainably Handmade
Like quilters of my grandmother’s generation who recycled fabrics that were readily available to them, it is important to me to find and use beautiful quality materials that might otherwise be wasted. And like many contemporary craftspeople, an important part of my process is the time spent attaining unique high quality materials from which to construct my craft. While I do use some new designer fabrics that I find particularly appealing, I try to use recycled materials as much as possible. I especially like to use woven cotton button-down shirts and older fabrics resurrected from the cast off fabric collections of others’. I enjoy giving new life to these once-loved, now nearly forgotten textiles. I am inspired by quilters from the 19th and early 20th centuries who produced beautiful and dynamic work from the limited fabric choices they had. I strive for simplicity in composition; to marry fabrics in unexpected, humorous and beautifully harmonious ways, with attention to colors and associations evoked by prints. My goal is to put together a small family of fabrics that work well together, each having an equal part in the whole, instead of individual prints competing or getting lost in the fray. The fabrics I use are often prints, sometimes depicting scenes or characters, that take the viewer to another time and place. I enjoy including an obviously recycled decorative element in my work when I can. I want people to experience the realization, “Hey! This used to be a shirt.”
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