My sewing story

It's Wednesday again.  Funny how it keeps coming around...

I haven't made progress on the quilt.  Emily puts me to shame with all her projects.  She's amazing.  And she has an actual job as well.  I mean, really, there is no excuse for me to be so behind, but the quilting fervor I had before moving disappeared.  I was using quilting as a way to procrastinate packing.  Funny how that pattern keeps coming around...

Put now the two sides of the quilt are done and the next step is giving me anxiety.  I tried doing a bit of online research about batting (or wadding as they call it here) and I got all worked up about how I did my quilt wrong.

Before I continue, I should say that I don't think there is just one way to piece fabric together correctly, but thousands of women (and some men) have gone before me and figured out the kinks and I just plunged headlong into sewing pieces together without much thought about what came next.  This could bite me in the butt.

Let's forget that I have no idea if I want cotton, polyester or wool batting (as I have no idea how the quilt will be used and apparently this is the deciding factor in this multiple choice hell), but it turns out I went about my sizing of the back all wrong.

I was working under the assumption that the front and back should be of the same size.  You make a sandwich with the batting as the meat and then stitch it all together and slap on some binding around the edges.  However, every bit of 'batting sizing' advice I could find told me this...

"The batting should be cut larger than the front of the quilt, but smaller than the back."

It took me awhile to understand this statement.  I fancy I have decent spatial awareness, something to do with the Geography training perhaps, but I could not wrap my head around how this arrangement was physically possible when the front and back of the quilts are the same size.

...unless the back is supposed to be bigger than the front.  Are you freaking kidding me??!!!

Is this some secret of quilting that everyone knows but no one says?  Because it is a given that any fool with a sewing machine knows?

image from here

This is not the first time my ignorance is blinding obvious.  A few months ago, Emily and I were having a twitter discussion about t-shirt quilts and she casually asked me, "are you using a ballpoint needle or stabilizer for your shirts?"

................?????

I had to respond that I had no idea what either of those two things were, so no, I wasn't using them.  I was using the foot and needle that came with the machine and any thread I could find and any bobbin that was wound and a 'shitload' of straight pins (that's a technical term). I had no advice on thread tension or stitch.

The truth is out now.  I'm a hack.

I went into this project relying on the sewing knowledge and skill passed on to me from my mother, grandmother and the women of the circus.  I was following my gut and instincts.  It was an experiment of sorts.

Could I create a passable quilt out of memories and scraps?
Could the essence of this traditional craft be simple and instinctual?
Could the very simple instructions of good side in, sew together, open be universal enough?


Well, the quilt isn't done yet.  But I think I am going back to winging it.  I started this journey with the idea of harnessing past memories and skills handed down.  That's not to say that the many tutorials out there are not cut of the same cloth, but they are cold to me at the moment.  I don't know the women behind them and they don't know me.  The advice is useful but impersonal.  I'm not looking for an instruction manual, I'm looking for a story.

For now, my story is one of imperfect improvisation.  An honoured tradition to all the women that taught me to sew.  Funny how it keeps coming around.




What's yours?