I don't have any formal art training and I had never heard the phrase "negative space" until I took a workshop with a famous quilter in 1985. When I drew a quilt block the design was black and the background white. When she drew the block it was the opposite, and the black was the negative space. As the modern quilt guilds were formed the term has been widely used. I needed a little more information about negative space. Trisch Price has analyzed and labeled some ways negative space is used in modern quilts in "Accentuate the Negative", published by Kansas City Star Books, now part of C&T Publishing. Here is a link to see some of the quilts in the book. I found it interesting and even though I didn't find any project I wanted to make in the book I know I will go back and re-read about each style of negative space as I work on future quilts.
I have always admired Amish quilts with their bright contrasting colors. Carl Hentsch also admired them and he has written a book with his quilts inspired by but not copies of Amish quilts. This link will take you to a peek inside the "Amish-Inspired Quilts" (C&T Publishing). The second photo shows a quilt that I might have to make. Carl used prints as well as solids in his quilts and I most likely will too.
On my projects: I cut the pieces for the corners on the medallion quilt but haven't sewn them yet. I did quite a bit of ditch quilting on the star quilt, just 6 lines to go. Hopefully I'll have progress on both to show tomorrow.
