Gillian Cooper–Quilter, Writer, Tutor

A favorite studio artist visit was with Gillian Cooper who lives in Stirlingshire, Scotland. As she is a fellow London City and Guilds graduate, I was particularly interested to see her work.

She didn’t have titles posted, but her work speaks for itself!

I like the hand stitching in this artwork and the way it generates movement and creates a softness to the piece.

I love, love, love the layering in this piece along with the combination of hand and machine stitching. It all creates such depth. Gillian shared that the machine quilted design is stitched from the back so she doesn’t have to mark the top. A tip I’m surely going to use in the future.

Here’s a detail shot of the quilt above.

Here’s a second quilt in the same vein as that above.

Notice she has used rust dying in these pieces.

Gillian showed us a work in progress that I really admire and have been keeping the idea mind for a future piece. She has constructed several long strips of fabric featuring vessels of a variety of shapes. The vessels are appliquéd, painted, and stitched. Then Gillian has added numerous motifs. Note how she has done all of this in a collage technique, layering fabrics as desired.

Note the machine stitching in this section.

Finally, this is a separate wall hanging that reflects the motifs in the collage work in progress.