Dilys Fronks
By Cynthia Van Hazinga
It’s All About Perspective
“My favorite expression is ‘I feel a quilt coming on!’ I just can’t help myself. And if I can do it, anyone can!”
Dilys Fronks, sometimes called “Dilys the Quilt” by her Welsh neighbors, teaches, writes books, and has inspired a quilting movement in her part of the British Isles. At one time a “total non-sewer,” she began to learn in the south of England some 28 years ago, but had to hold her own classes when she moved to Wales: “Being a trained teacher, and possibly three quilts ahead of potential students. . . word of mouth brought students to my door until I had 84 students each week.”
Finding Creativity
Class size wasn’t all that blossomed. The passion for quilting is spreading in Wales, even though British quilters use mainly fabrics imported from America (at some expense!). Dilys is a one-woman stimulant, and admits delight in the process. “When I attend quilt shows, I am always amazed at how varied quiltmaking is and how it is constantly developing.”
Dilys branched out in her own work as well. She is modest about her imaginative designs: “I began humbly, with a traditional sampler. Until then, I did not realize that I had a creative bone in my body or a feel for color and an aptitude for design.” Dilys tried many patterns in reverse appliqué, but it wasn’t until she admired wrought-iron gates and balconies in the South of France and also in England that she began to work with the idea of looking through a decorative screen, now one of her signature quilt styles.
In the last five years, she has studied color, form and composition, and art and painting techniques have influenced her most recent quilts. “I now work in a more painterly way with fused fabric, cut with a pinked or fluted cutting blade,” she explains. Her chief contribution to appliqué techniques, and the subject of her latest book, “Dual Image Appliqué”, is a no-waste reverse appliqué method that uses one fused pattern to produce two images (see her “Falling Leaves” and the accompanying lesson quilt in the Oct-Nov issue of Quilt magazine).
The Rural Life
Dilys and her husband Roger live on a traditional farm in rural Wales with panoramic views; two rescued cats, Chivers and Pussy Willow, preside, and a neighbor’s sheep help keep the grass down. Their two married daughters live nearby, and Dilys is scheming to teach needlework to a granddaughter, aged two.
She explains her very-Welsh nickname: “In North Wales, where I live, there is a quaint tradition. Tradespeople sharing the same name are often known locally as ‘Jones the Post’
or ‘Thomas the Milk’ and so on. There are many others who share the Welsh name of Dilys, and I am sometimes distinguished from them as ‘Dilys the Quilt’—a label I wear with pride.”
Two versions of “Swirling Swallows” demonstrate Dilys’s dual image appliqué technique: After cutting the birds and scrollwork out of the black fabric, the negative image appears at at left, layered on an orange batik, and the positive image appears at right, layered on a multicolored batik.
Rather than simply being inspired by wrought iron scrollwork for her appliqué designs, Dilys decided to incorporate the intricate gate into her quilt, “Cheltenham Gate”, using the colorful background to help it stand out.
Looking in: Dilys used fusible and machine raw-edge appliqué to create the painterly garden effect in the background of “Archway to Hanging Basket,’’ and then completed the wall hanging with one of her signature silhouetted gates.
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