The fifth chapter in Carolyn Friedlander’s book, Savor Each Stitch, is EMPHASIS.  She says, “Emphasis is all about making a thoughtful decision about how to bring your design to life. Through fabric placement, quilting intention, and all of the other tools explored in this book, you can create emphasis by highlighting different parts of a design.”

I’m a part of a Savor Each Stitch Book Bee, and we’ve studied line, contrast, scale and color.

Emphasis seemed like an easy concept. For example, Susan posted this wonderful diagram worksheet from a site by Claudia Jacques and emphasis stands out as merely focusing one’s attention on a particular item. That “red” person stands out, right? From this worksheet, line and color are the tools, and contrast, emphasis and scale are ways to take those tools and make art.

The project from Carolyn’s book involved a block with 10 pieces, and by changing the color or emphasis of each piece she changed which part of the block stood out:

I wanted something less paper-piecing intensive. I had observed a quilting friend’s traditional block sampler and mused about how the Drunkard’s Path stood out and I liked it a lot. Two pieces — I could do that.

With my new acrylic template in hand, I started making quarter circles and experimented with changing the emphasis in this traditional block to make something unique.

I love it. It’s very me.

The size is 57″ by 71″. Each block was 4″ unfinished and each Drunkard’s Path was 14.5″ unfinished. You will notice I turned some of the quarter circles to make a few half circles and one three-quarter circle. I also used a grey geometric print as the background and in some places I didn’t make any quarter circles. There are four rows by five rows of Drunkard’s Paths.

Now that the top is pieced, it doesn’t scream “emphasis”, but that is where it began. I’m thinking of naming it “Mod Drunk.”

I will have to decide how to quilt it and that will be another way to explore the concept of EMPHASIS.