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Her studio is in a former munitions warehouse in Bridgeport, Connecticut, though
the only thing exploding there nowadays is color. Her palette and patterns shock
purists, but her craftsmanship is strictly traditional.
A former ballerina,
performance artist, and official seamstress to Trappist monks, Denyse clearly
likes to shift gears. But she’s not impulsive. It wasn’t until she was immersed
in her quilt business for five years that she quit her day job as a book
designer and pursued the company full time in 2000. Today her line is carried in
select department stores and catalogs, yet she still does custom. She’ll take
your grandma’s dresses or dad’s ties, for instance, and turn them into a family
heirloom.
(a) “Tulip
Tree” is a new applique design. (b) Denyse’s inspiration board, with a
portrait of her mom, Claire, who taught her to sew. (c) Photo of a
vintage quilts the artist admires. “It has life and personality. It’s so
real.”(d) A schoolroom chalkboard serves as an impossible-to-lose “memo pad.”
Floor-to-ceiling colors include tart, tropical bursts of blue and lime.
(e) Denyse Schmidt
Quilts from Chronicle Books spawned a line of coordinating notecards and
stationery. (f) “Beauty parlor” chairs in chrome blue and harvest gold
typify the sorts of kinetic color combinations Denyse favors. In the background
on shelves, old wool skeins salvaged from a local mill. (g) “Lazy Gal,” a
limited-edition cotton design, is all about asymmetry. (h) “Ginger
Roots,” features unlikely color
combinations—but they work. Denyse and
her small staff do the piecing in the studio, (i) For the couture line,
the labor-intensive hand-quilting is handled by Amish women in Minnesota. “In
summer we have to wait longer because they have more outdoor chores.” (j) Two DIY patchwork kitties from Denyse’s new
book sit on the sofa. (k) Locker bins
hold fabric scraps sorted by color. (l) A
two-tone Log Cabin variation.
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