Binding my time

It's our 100th post!!!

To celebrate this momentous occasion I thought I would write about something really special.  Something really near and dear to the quilters' heart.

Binding.

That's right.  Binding.

I told you it was special.


Recently, I felt as though I unlocked the secret of binding.  In my first two projects I fumbled through this finishing technique, never really feeling I was doing it right.  In hindsight, anything that kept the edges together and neat would be considered 'right.'  But at the time I felt very aware of there being a proper way to bind and  that I wasn't quite getting it right.

With the t-shirts, I was confident I could figure it out just by studying the machine-made quilt on my bed and combining that with my new-found skills, after piecing together both the front and back panels.

Luckily, before I dove in, I consulted the hive mind that is the internet quilting community, and its many tutorials, and saved myself from what was on course to being an 'interesting' improvised solution.  I shutter to think of the melt-down I so nearly succumbed to had I went about my 'confident' business.

With that particular project, and projects since, I have harboured a bit of a stubborn streak about taking advice from other quilters or leaning on tutorials from popular blogs.

While binding Pruin's quilt, I had a bit of an embarrassing epiphany.  One of the reasons we began this blogging adventure in particular was to utilize the collective knowledge of the quilting community.  To experiment and document how this particular knowledge and skill set is passed along and how it mutates with each use.

I wanted to collect stories about how one learned to quilt, with the expectation that within that learning process would always be a link to the skill being passed along tangibly in some way.  Yet, I was refusing to allow myself to learn from others' experience and generosity, be it virtual or tangible.  I was going to figure it out myself, dammit.

But with Pruin's quilt, I wanted to do it 'right.'  I was not satisfied with my earlier attempts and I didn't want to but that frustration and doubt into this particular quilt.  There was enough of those emotions coming in the future.  I wanted this piece to be a bit about my growing confidence as a quilter as well as my ability to compromise.  I had let myself use store bought fabric, why not let myself use pre-packaged knowledge in the form of a tutorial as well.

I sought out five different tutorials online and read them each numerous times.  Comparing the techniques, noticing how each quilter approached corners and finishing a bit differently.  Critiquing the teaching quality of the accompanying text and photos.  Finally combining the wisdom of two tutorials, I bound Pruin's quilt.  And while my hand-finishing mojo still takes at least a half length to get going, I felt very satisfied and proud of the result.

I hadn't reinvented the wheel. I reached out to the community and expertise to learn a new skill.  But I also allowed myself to mutate that skill, or at least the learning of it, a tiny bit by combining the five tutorials' advice with my own confidence and skill level.

The satisfaction I get from Pruin's quilt, despite its uneven joins and quilting (which visually is a step back compared to my t-shirts), is not just from the simple fact that I completed it but also because I completed it with the assistance of my quilting community.  I learned something and that story and skill is now as much a part of the quilt as the story of shirts of which it is made.


Do you remember your first binding?

Future memories

Hello, Thursday.

Sadly, I didn't get much done this week in terms of physical quilting.  I did however make major in-roads in the collecting of stuff for the little person on the way.

While I wasn't sewing this week, I was thinking a lot about this space and where I want to go with my quilting adventure.  When we started it was all about one particular quilt for me.  A personal journey through my past facilitated by my old t-shirts.  It was revealing and exciting and at times even intoxicating.  I couldn't stop.  I went on 12 hour binges of piecing.

It was new and it took time. It unearthed memories forgotten and revealed serendipitous moments and connections between personal history and the current life of the material.

This new quilt isn't as exciting right now.  I'm not feeling the same connection to the material.  Maybe because the material is filled with Pete's memories and not mine.  Or maybe because I used the pieces as regular fabric, cutting out patterned pieces and not listening to the fabric itself.  These materials have no meaning for me and it's making the work harder.  Even the upholstery remnants spoke to me more.

I'm also putting off working on this particular quilt because I feel it will be done really quickly.  It needs to be done quickly. I only have two months before the little *bundle of joy* arrives and sitting at the machine is getting more and more difficult the bigger I become.  But something about the time and stages attached to the first quilt made it seem more real.


I took some time to procrastinate and started reading a new book about a quilt exhibition at the V&A a few years ago.  I missed the exhibition at the time.  It was right smack dab in the middle of me finishing my PhD, getting married and then having an early-life crisis (I kid, a little).  As I read the book, I'm kind of glad I missed the exhibition as now I get to read all the research that went into putting the collection together.  The theories about the role of myth in the preservation of quilts and the practicality and luxury of pieced material.  Many of the quilts in the book had no deep significance to the maker at the time of creation.  The significance and myth came after the fact with its use.

Of course.

How could I be so narrow-sighted?  Yes, the first quilt I made was for me.  The materials were meaningful and the journey to a new life was also meaningful, but it was an exercise in recovering the past.  This next one is for a person who only half-exists at the moment.  It's meant to be a starting point, a first.  It's meant to collect meaning along the way (and by 'meaning' I'm thinking commemorative stains of baby's first diaper explosion or first picnic outside, whatever).

And of course, it's not devoid of meaning.  It has traces of both Pete and I, just as the little person it will comfort has traces of us both.  Where is goes with that mix is still a mystery.  For the quilt and the little person.

I've been obsessed with tracking down memories about quilting and stories of the craft and was always thinking of these memories and stories being past tense.  Ignoring all the evidence (wedding quilts, baby quilts, housewarming quilts, guest quilts, etc.) that points to the memory making power of quilts and quilt-making being about the future and all the memories that have yet to be made in conjunction with this bit of blanket.

So I think I have found my mojo with this quilt.   I'm on-board with the materials and the possibility.

Let the piecing begin!

A little housekeeping

Chinese New Year has come and gone, for some of us it is the season of Lent and for others of us spring and its feeling and promise of renewal can't come soon enough. (Although the screaming, pooping, squirmer that will come with my spring this year is anticipated and feared in equal measure.)

This little space on the internet isn't immune from these feelings of renewal and cleansing.  A few weeks ago Emily mentioned in passing a Skype session in which we made some plans for this little quilting adventure.  We are still working on some of the ideas and slowly coming up with a timeline for rolling out the changes and doing some behind-the-scenes work to make these new additions and edits gel with our current tack.

We started the blog with the idea of documenting the life of a particular quilt for each of us.  I was starting with a memory laden pile of t-shirts and Emily had a stash of fabric aching to be turned into something.  We weren't interested in creating tutorials or step by step, blow by blow descriptions of the process or portfolios of photos.  However, as each of the original pieces came to an end that is exactly where we found ourselves; diligently showing our work with little meaning or storytelling.

We started to think about what we love about quilting and what we want to share with our readers.  And while we will still share what we are currently working on, we want to expand our quilting discussions to what we are thinking about, what sparks our interest in the craft and what moves our readers to quilt.

To that end, we have made a few changes and will be looking for a bit of help from you, our lovely readers and quilting community.

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Monday will remain devoted to Emily and her quilting adventures and forays into her local quilting community.

Tuesdays and Wednesday will be spaces for historical/traditional discussions/stories and wordless posts highlighting the visual and artistic aspects of quilting.  We want to dig into the stories behind popular/traditional block designs, or terms or photos or superstitions, etc.  We will leave it open to interpretation.

Thursday will become Ariel's day to babble about material re-use mis-adventures and ruminations.

Friday Round-Up will transition to a monthly recap of links shared throughout the preceding days with a few special extras we found around the internet.  Taking its place will be a kind of occasional Scrap Bag of quilting stories, memories, interviews, or book reviews, etc. we (or you) collect over time.

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Obviously, most of this will be our own work and discoveries, but we want to create a space for community discoveries and stories as well.  Maybe you are interested in a particular aspect of quilting, or maybe you have a story or memory of a quilt you can't shake.  Why not share it with us?  It could be a single image with a caption or a complete history of a family heirloom.  Whatever it is, we want it.

So have a think and drop us a comment or email and let's stitch together a little virtual quilting bee complete with craft, storytelling and cake.

The Pattern Continues...

Remember way back in July when I kept putting off the start of the t-shirt quilt?

I'm doing it again.

I think we can all agree that quilt was a success.  Now it comes to my next project and again I am stalling.  My excuse this time around is about pattern.  I'm completely lost as to how I want this next project to go.

Despite Emily's generous gift of a super-secret-quilted-baby-something (which she is crazy generous for making) I have been planning a cot quilt for awhile now.  I mean you can't have too many, right?  From what I hear everything baby related gets covered in puke and poo on the regular so having a couple quilts isn't a bad thing.

I have the materials picked out, again stuff laying around the house, but I am still in the process of tracking them down.  The last quilt was all about me.  It was made of my t-shirts and reflected my personal history up to a particular point.  That point being getting married.  Pete is only tangentially present in that quilt.  He is a much bigger part of this picture.

This quilt will be made from his clothes.  Unlike me, Pete keeps all his old clothes.  (I know I kept all those t-shirts, but i am horrible for donated buckets of stuff hastily and then mourning the loss of a particular item the next time the season comes around.) There are items in that wardrobe that have not seen the light of day since before we moved in together over six years ago. Items that were sent from his closet in New Zealand but speak of a much different boy than the man I know.

I'm not touching those items.  They are his to do with as he pleases.  I am going for his old work shirts and boxers.  A kinky combination on the surface but one that has precedent.  Back in my Kentucky days, before I met Pete, I had a colleague doing her PhD on a group of quilters in the Appalachian mountains.  Their stories were fantastic, as most old mountain ladies'stories are, but there was one that caught my attention then that I have held with me since.  It goes without saying that they reused fabric.  Rarely was any new material bought to complete their projects but some of their materials were not only reused, but hot.

It seems that many of the ladies worked in the Jockey factory sewing together briefs and boxers.  Occasionally a few of the larger scraps would accidentally appear in their handbags when they got home at the end of the day.  Beautiful deep blues and rich reds so rare in their usual threadbare offerings of old clothes and husbands' work shirts.  These pieces would then find their way into the quilts of the quilting bee and they would giggle about the story as they related it to my colleague years later.

Maybe it gave them a little thrill to steal these scraps, like children taking candy out of the pick n mix boxes, and 'hide' them in their traditional, and acceptable, hobby.  Maybe they just saw fabric as fabric and couldn't abide the waste of throwing away perfectly good scraps.  Maybe both.  Maybe neither.

Fabric is fabric.  Waste not, want not.


While I track down these old clothes of my dear husband I am also thinking about the pattern.  I don't want to do the free-form improvisation of the t-shirt quilt and in reference to this tradition of using the 'menfolks' clothes as material I'm leaning toward a more traditional pattern but I'm not sold on stars or rings or any of the traditional blocks.

A quilt with a traditional technique but a more modern look.  That would fit my husband to a tee.

Made to measure

How did you spend your New Year's Day?

We spent it measuring.

Measuring our bathroom for an upcoming remodel.
Measuring our box room for an upcoming nursery.
Measuring our kitchen for a new shelf.
And finally, eyeballing some fabric for an almost finished project.

I just don't learn, do I? Measuring was in the air, the rattle of a retracting tape was the soundtrack of the day, yet I still 'winged it' when it came to my sewing project that afternoon.  Old habits and all that...

After a little fiddling, I decided to turn those remnants into a quilted table runner.  Or maybe a cushion for a shelf or a wall hanging.  Whatever it will end up, it is currently a long run of triangles.  In the quilting world this is called Flying Geese I believe.  Funny, when I was first laying it out I thought it looked like fish scales, but that could be my psuedo-maritime heritage coming through.

So New Year's afternoon found my husband putting up a shelf in the kitchen and myself sewing at the dining room table.  Each mumbling and grumbling to ourselves and at our tools.  He broke a wall anchor, I broke a needle.  He was temporarily stumped by the wall, I was baffled by my inability to sew a straight line.  

The beauty of a Victorian terrace house is in its charming (read: period) features, however this also means no wall is perfectly straight or square after 200 years of 'renovation.'  The *gorgeous* 70s vinyl on the wall in our kitchen hides a multitude of bumpy sins while doing a little sinning of its own.  The beauty of remnants is also in its charm and history and wonkiness.  Who else chose this fabric? What is it currently adorning across this borough? Why is it seemingly impossible for me to manage a straight or square cut with these pieces?

So while my husband cursed the hidden menace of wonky walls, I tried to make him feel better by explaining that I had done a bit of miscalculation of my own.  Somehow I had managed to make six out of the seven sections uneven.

It didn't really work. As he said, you can't un-stitch a wall.


But we both persevered and the shelf is up and holding and my fish scales came along nicely, if I do say so myself.

Here's to a year of measuring up and making it work.

Friday Round-up

Each Friday, one of us does a little round-up of stuff that has stuck in the brain this week.  Kind of like an ear-wig, but with stuff.  Ear-wigs are okay, too.  It's not always sewing related.


I have kind of avoided the internet for awhile so I have no great links for you today.   However, I have been thinking about the memories attached to things.  A by-product of recently handling most of our things as they were packed onto a truck and unpacked into our new home, but also the point of my particular quilt.

Not every quilt I make will come with pre-packaged memories.  In fact I am looking forward to creating something from memory-free materials and seeing what stories appear, however, the stories held by material objects is a bit of an obsession of mine.

Today I bring you three books which play with this idea of story-infused things.

This is now a movie which focuses on the tempestuous mother/daughter relationship.  However, for me, this book centers on a ratty old album full of the detritus of life.  This album holds the Divine Secrets of a particular life and how it entwines with her dearest friends.  Some bits are self-explanatory, some bits are familiar yet not clear and some will forever be secrets.

Leading on from a novel about a scrapbook, this novel is written as a scrap book, or in this case, an auction brochure.  It's a story of a relationship that didn't work told exclusively through items belonging to each partner.  The story of their courtship, relationship and unwinding is told through photographs and descriptions of each item.  Fascinating.

Finally, as this is a quilting blog, a book about the secrets and stories sewn into a particular quilt.  This novel is also now a movie, but I recommend sticking with the book.  This is written as half tutorial and half memoir.  It's a very moving piece about the different kinds of love existing in the world and the very different ways women love.



So there is your fall reading list.  Snuggle up and enjoy.

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?

of socks and fishnets...

Inspiration: “The circus is a jealous wench. Indeed that is an understatement. She is a ravening hag who sucks your vitality as a vampire drinks blood – who kills the brightest stars in her crown and will allow no private life for those who serve her; wrecking their homes, ruining their bodies, and destroying the happiness of their loved ones by her insatiable demands. She is all of these things, and yet, I love her as I love nothing else on earth.” ― Henry Ringling North


This project has a way of contradicting me at every turn.  This week was a stressful one for our little family.  We were waiting on someone else to make a deadline.  We had done everything we could and we just had to wait.  It was infuriating.  I may have shed a few tears and ‘googled’ anxiety attack.

In the midst of this, I decided to get back to the quilt.  It has been giving me long hours of mindfully present bliss and that was just what I needed.  Except the quilt didn’t get that memo.

As stated last week, I was moving on to the circus section of my tshirt collection.  Last week I dove into my research box (literally a file box labelled "PhD Research" filled with papers and scraps and such) looking for something and discovered a few more usable textiles.  They were a bit musty by virtue of the state of the research box but I suddenly had an idea.  I would turn these into an appliqué.

You may remember (because it was only last week) that I previously shied away from appliqué as I had no idea how it might work.  And, to be honest, I didn’t want to break my stride of ‘competent’ sewing.  But this week my mind was a bit frazzled and apparently that meant I was ready to tackle a little appliqué action.


I started with two socks/arm warmers.  This was a dancer’s trick I introduced to the circus when I strained my arm learning to mount an elephant.  At the time I told everyone the injury was from mounting the spare tire on the bracket on backend of my motorhome.  I’m sure they believed me.  Who wouldn’t believe that story?  I mean it’s not like they all watched me flail about and bang into Lisa’s (the elephant) head about ten times the day before.  Of course is was from the tire.

I digress.

The socks weren’t going to work as tubes so I sliced them open, stitched down the wonky heel bits and sewed them together to create a wonky square.  Easy.

The plan then was to appliqué part of my showgirl tights to this square.  However, the square was a bit…wonky…as I said, so I decided to mount the square on a larger piece and then tackle the fishnet appliqué.

This is where the stress of the week started to show.
 
Remember last week I made that cute little square with the hole?  It went so well and looked so good I decided to try that technique again.  Not only was it easy but it would add some visual interest.  You know, link some pieces together?  Because there isn’t enough going on in this quilt, I need a little fancy machine work to up the visual interest.
 
These seams went so wrong, I’m almost embarrassed to show you.  But I’m stuck with them, so you are too.
 
I’m blaming the textile itself.  Socks are not meant to go through the machine with fancy stitches.  There is no other explanation.  I mean I did have one eye on the clock and the other on the phone, but I’m sure that has no bearing on the mess that is this square.

I ran the first length and the pins kept getting caught in the foot and then pulled along creating weird gaps in stitches and bunches in fabric.  The next length I tried less pins thinking that was the problem.  Still a disaster.  The last length I went back to lots of pins but tried a feeding technique using both hands (which is probably what I should be doing every time).  Slightly better result.  I can’t remember what I did for the last length.  I think at that point I just wanted to be done with it.

The square was done.  It was a calamity, but it was done.  Now came the task of adding the tights.  I had a lot of ideas about creating some more ‘visual interest’ but in the end it was all I could do to just finish this bit.  
Initially, I wanted the tights to include a portion of repaired fishnet, but as anyone who has worn these knows, they always rip (and so are repaired) at the crouch and I really didn’t have the mental capability to figure out how to get that section tactfully onto the square.  I went with a portion of waistband which created its own issue.

 

It took me close to an hour to stitch that band of fishnet.


And that was when I declared myself done for the day.  This one square took as much time as last week’s entire block.  Too much stress, very little mindful, present bliss.

Roll up next week for the concluding story of the circus block.

The B*tch Block

Soundtrack: Bruce Cockburn, Stealing Fire

Inspiration: "As for material, any old, worn, or used clothing would be fine..."


11AM
Showered, hair & make-up, laundry in, porridge done, music on.  Big skirt, ballerina, but maxi.  Makes hips look twice their size.  Fight the temptation to switch to the laptop and surf the web, just a little more research.  Instead, pull the cutting mat and rotary cutter out of their plastic and open the bags of t-shirts.

Feel a little overwhelmed by the collection amassed here in just one bag. Circus. Family. Pete and Africa. University.  And these are just the shirts already cut up, I haven’t even begun to look at the other pieces still intact.

During the last two weeks of ‘research,’ I had the idea of creating traditional patterns with these clothes and t-shirts.  But I can’t bring myself to chop them up even more.  I am intimidated.  Scared to cut through a word or logo, scared of what might be lost.  I go with the original idea of a t-shirt quilt.  Or at least I will start practicing with the t-shirt pieces.

I’m drawn to the ‘university’ pile.  Maybe because there is a lot to work with there.  Maybe because of the music.  It’s the activist/angry feminist pile.  I realize it actually spans more than my four years of university (it goes all the way to my master’s degree) but it is a particular version of myself that doesn’t really exist anymore.  Dark red thread.  The colour of angry feminist activist? Maybe.  But it is the bobbin already wound.

I’m overwhelmed by the smell of all this jersey.  It smells like my childhood or my dad.  It reminds me instantly of my parents’ house.  But that isn’t the house I grew up in.  Did the smell move with them or does every t-shirt smell this way?  I notice my cat’s hair on the darker pieces.  I cut these on the green carpet of the TV room which is always a little dull with cat hair.  I watched Steel Magnolias while I cut.

Not sure how to proceed, I start cleaning up the cuts and isolating the text or logos.  I start to lay out the pieces on the kitchen floor, but I can’t see a pattern.  It seems like an ambitious step.  I pick two some smaller logos and sew them together.  Then sew those to a bigger piece.  Then those to a bigger piece.
At every flip of a seam, I smile.  Big.  A huge goofy grin.  I patiently pull out each straight pin, flip over the seam and become ecstatic with such a simple effort.

There is a gap.  The series of words could be pieced to fill it, but which ones?  I pick three out of the seven that are applicable to myself then, but also now.  Words that stayed with me.  That don’t feel as jarring.
The music choice for today begins to seem appropriate.  I didn’t plan it, but maybe it influenced my choice of time period.  A little rebellion, outrage, impotence.

Over the course of the next four hours, I swear I listen to the album at least 20 times.  The lyrics start to make sense and I begin to see how the rhythmic choices reflect the feeling and ‘place’ of the song.  I have fuzzy pictures of my parents as I listen to it, of my dad getting riled up and frustrated, of my mom dancing.  I remember how cocky and sure I was of the world and my place in it.  I remember how that assurance lost my dream job.  I remember getting riled up and frustrated.  How exhausted I became trying to maintain a level of outrage.  How I now leave it to others to get riled up.  How I am envious of their commitment  but also a little thankful I am no longer so angry.  How I see more value in influencing the younger generation than trying to change minds so firmly set.

I chuckle and the ‘revolution’ because all I ever did was bitch.  I was too scared to start a revolution outside my little bubble of liberal arts education where ‘token activism & rebellion’ was fostered and encouraged.

As I sew I have visions of Gramma Rosa and Mom in my head.  Fuzzy images, not specific, just there.  The two women that taught me everything I know about sewing and using a sewing machine. I can’t remember particular lessons, but I know it was them.  I remember Mom as I attempt to thread the machine needle, noticing that my hands move as her’s do.  Is this unconscious mimicry or DNA?

Suddenly, and eventually, I get all the shirts into a messy block.  I started with just two small pieces, thinking I would just mess a bit and kept going.  I remember there are more shirts behind me on the floor.  Laying them out, I realise I had created the beginning of a square, all the pieces fit together and the colours just work.

But the square is a bit raggedy.  I think I should leave it, but I’m not ready to be done and I also feel it’s not done.  The scraps from earlier trimming lay around the block on the floor and make me think of a border.  But I immediately baulk at the idea.  Creating a border means it won’t ‘fit’ with other shirts.  It will stand alone.  I hesitate.  Do I want to demarcate this part of me?  Am I ready to box up this part of who I was/am?

That seems too deep for sewing.

I just want to keep sewing.

I go with the urge to sew.  It is right now and undeniable.

I’m flying on the machine now and because I am working so fast, I sew the wrong sides together.  I go with it.  A mistake, a lesson, built in to the block.  I make it part of the design.

1PM
I take a break.  I sit with it.  I look at it, there on my kitchen floor.  I look at the connections between pieces, I think about the order in which to sew.  I notice unintentional squares of colour and work to ensure they stay.  I unpick a few stitches here and there to make corners neat.  I marvel at how easy it seems to be coming together.

The block is getting heavier, t-shirt heavy.  I have to be careful with the feed and the foot and pin placement.  This awareness makes me feel more confident.

Music still going.  Each seam still brings a grin.

And then it’s done.  The chequered corners meeting perfectly.  I’m not sure how I managed it without ironing or ‘stiffening’ but I am really pleased.
I trim it up and admire it, there on the kitchen floor.

3PM
I slowly begin to clean up.  Fabric and t-shirts away, clothes back in the bags, scraps in another bag.  Sewing machine apart and back in its chest.  Finally, I iron.  As I iron I think about Grams again.  Just general, no specific memory, just a presence.

And then it’s done.  Again.  I have a square of my life and I am immensely proud of it.


* from How to Make an American Quilt by Whitney Otto

Sew it begins

Some things you should know before we start: 

~You can expect a lot more of that. Messy puns and the like. Also, a lot of sarcasm and probably a bit of cursing.
~I'm an out-of-work academic. By which I mean I am not paid for my research and writing.  However, I am an academic so I approach most things as a research opportunity and spend more time analysing than actually doing.
~Also, I am a champion procrastinator.  Have been for years.
~I swing between obsessive pack-rat tendencies and righteous de-cluttering sprees.
~I'm slightly frightened of my sewing machine.
So, in general, the perfect person to start quilting.

Double Wedding Ring
Image found here

I have had this idea to start quilting for about a year now.  I have read a few books and watched a movie and went at my t-shirts with a pair of kitchen shears and the glass panes from picture frames as cutting guides, but it didn't go much further.  It didn't go any further, in fact.

I'm not sure why.  Actually, that's not entirely true.  I do know why.  Quilting is work.  Dedicated, intricate, long work.  I don't have that kind of attention span.  I mean I only finished my PhD because I scheduled my wedding date.  Otherwise, that might have dragged on another three years.

However, it is because of my lack of attention that quilting calls to me.  It seems to me at once a painstaking time-suck and a mindful meditation.  The zen of quilting, if you will.

Continuing on this line of thought, there are contradictions about quilting (in my mind) which I find fascinating as an academic, but also as a woman.  I don't love traditional quilting patterns, I have to admit, but I love the idea of a traditional quilting bee.  Women coming together with their scraps and needles and skill and stories and creating something which has a bit of each of them but is greater than it's sum of parts.  I am drawn to the 'modern' quilting patterns of colour blocks and improv piecework, but I'm not thrilled with the idea of quilting alone, wrestling with my machine and stubborn bobbins.

A few years ago I spent 5 months on the road with a circus.  It was grueling and fantastic all at once.  I learned so much about being a wife, mother and woman during those months of endless mud and driving and performing.  It was in the circus I was re-introduced to a kind of physical memory and storytelling.  I experienced how tangible those moments can be for teaching a physical skill, from climbing a rope to mending tights, as well as maintaining a way of life.  I had been in school for so long I forgot the best way to learn about something is to do it.


Two years now I have been a reluctant housewife and in those two years I have learned to find joy in cooking for my two-person family, creating a comfortable, and relatively clean, home and taking on the mending and altering of our clothes.  It has been a struggle to let myself enjoy these things as I was taught they were the yokes which confine women to the home and stifle our ambition and potential.  But after two years, I have come to disagree with these teachings.  Sure, there are many days when I feel trapped by my life of laundry and 'leisure' and feel taken-for-granted or my talents wasted.  But there are also days when I feel proud of something I created which gave joy or comfort to my family and friends.  More pride than I ever felt as an academic with a well-argued article.  There is something very tangible and satisfying in the role of housewife (at times) and I believe in the role of quilter as well.

All that being said, I still have yet to start.

I have excuses, sure (any procrastinator worth their salt has a grab-bag of excuses for anything and everything) but I'm going to try and work past them.

First and foremost, I have begun to identify the pieces in our wardrobe and home which I will transform into something resembling a quilt.  This is an ongoing process.  I have a few bags stuffed in our under-stair storage already earmarked for this purpose but I have a feeling I will be adding more.

Second, I am trying to decide between using a pattern or just free-forming it.  As a complete beginner, I feel I should probably use a pattern or kit, but I also have a very strong feeling I am going to Frankenstein some tutorials together and see where it takes me.

But before I make any real decisions on to-pattern or not-to-pattern, I will acquire a rotary cutter, measuring tool of sorts and cutting mat to replace my current kit of kitchen shears, picture frame glass and living room carpet.

Any suggestions are very welcome.