#igquiltfest part one
Hello!
Over on instagram quilters are responding to daily prompts as part of something called #igquiltfest. I’ve been trying to keep up with this. I’m sharing the posts here, in case you are interested and avoiding instagram.
Day 1: introductions
Hi, I'm Carson. I have been into the idea of quilting for decades but I didn't finish my first quilt until a few years ago. If I could figure out a way to quilt all day and not go broke, I would. I guess we all would, right? I live on a farm south of Portland, Oregon.
Day 2: First Quilt
My poor mom turned 70 on March 16, 2020, just as the strange veil of pandemic lockdown fell. I made her this quilt. It says CONGRATULATIONS ON SEVENTY TRIPS AROUND THE SUN. I had sewn a handful of partial quilt tops before, but this was the first time I managed to finish something. I raced it to a longarm quilter in Portland in the nick of time - before everything came to a grinding halt. (Nancy at Just Quilting - she's great.)
The quilt top was wonky in lots of ways. I loved how the quilting smoothed out my mistakes. It was like a miracle.
Day 3: Sewing Machine
My husband got me this Janome Sew Precise a long time ago - fifteen or twenty years ago - as a gift. I don’t know much about sewing machines. I don’t know if this is a good one or how he picked it out, but I think it’s perfect.
A couple of years ago the spool pin snapped off and I krazy glued it back on. That worked for a while, it snapped off again, I krazy glued it again, it snapped off a third time, and I finally broke down and had it repaired.
I could have bought a new sewing machine for what it cost to repair mine, but I didn’t want to. I don’t like:
Bells and whistles.
New technology and the pace at which I’m expected to master it and integrate it into my life.
Pressure to replace something that works well with a souped-up more complicated version of itself.
Planned obsolescence pervading every corner of the manufacturing world.
The idea that something new is always better than something old.
Why does anyone want this stupid, wasteful future? Why??
Anyway, I had my sewing machine repaired and serviced at Montavilla Sewing Center in Lake Oswego and now it works great.
Day 4: Ergo Quilter
Professionally, I’m a painter and an illustrator. Before I sewed quilts I painted them, like the one on this album cover for The Decemberists.
It’s easier to paint a quilt than it is to sew one. There are no technical parameters,* no gear needed. It’s fun. Everyone should paint a quilt.
Actual quilting, by comparison, was daunting. It took me a while to do it. But the impulse to sew was powerful! I started collecting fabric and piecing together little bits of quilt tops here and there. Eventually I created a dedicated place for my sewing machine. One day I finished a quilt. Ergo, quilter!
*While I did not design this painting to be a real quilt, a genius quilter named Valerie Bradley did turn it in to one. You can see it at @valerie_custom_quilting.
(I realized too late that this prompt was actually about ergonomics, not latin, which makes a lot more sense.)
Day 5: Why do you quilt?
Color and pattern.
Embroidery, appliqué, and hand-quilting - ancient crafts that connect me to a chain of unsung women artists stretching back millennia.
Hand-work that keeps my nervous hands busy and my mind calm.
No oversight, no feedback, no collaboration.
Improvising solutions to weird design problems of my own making.
Working BIG.
Day 7: Lesson Learned
I finished this covid-themed quilt top in the fall of 2020 and decided to hand quilt it, something I’d never done before. I comically thought I was nearly done when I finished the top - that quilting was just the final step - but I spent another year and a half hand quilting. I finally finished this up in May of 2022. Oof!
Oh the many lessons I learned. Here are a few:
Initially I wanted to quilt this with an improvised all-over pattern. I spent hours doing this, decided that a decorative stitch-in-the-ditch approach would look better, tore out all my stitches, and started over. I’m so glad I did. In the end, the few hours I wasted were a tiny dewdrop in the giant bucket of time I spent quilting. The lesson is: don’t be afraid to tear out your stitches if you have a better idea. It’s going to take forever either way.
I used yellow fabric marking chalk to make quilting guidelines and it never washed out. This was a huge bummer. I looked it up to see if I was missing something and lots of people online were complaining about the same issue. Be warned: Clover Chaco Liner just doesn’t wash out sometimes. I won’t ever use it again. These days I like to use a Dritz Disappearing Ink marking pen.
I read somewhere that it was critical to wax my quilting thread, lest it tangle. I did do this for the entirety of this project, but I recently skipped this step on another quilt to see what would happen and I didn’t notice a difference. So I’m not waxing my thread anymore. I use Gutermann hand quilting thread and I like it a lot.
(Someone pointed out in the comments that this thread is already waxed, which I did not know. It was embarrassing!)
Day 8: Scrappy Finish
Day 9: Fabric Storage
Behold!
Day 10: Upcycling
When I first started collecting fabric, I bought a lot of old sheets at goodwill. The navy fabric here is one of those. The white fabric is my own old bed sheet, repurposed. I was dedicated to the idea of quilting with used fabric for a while, but I am so particular about color and the allure of fabric stores is strong. I’m not a very thrifty or sustainable quilter these days. There’s lots of room for improvement.
I have a bunch of white bed sheets in my studio and some day I’m going to get it together to learn about natural dyes. I live on a farm that is bountiful with dye and mordant matter, including walnuts, sumac, and a million oak galls. Natural dyers, tell me where to start.
Day 11: Quilt Back
I'm really proud of these. They represent many of hours of labor. I quilted the second one while rewatching the Sopranos. It took me four seasons, which tallies up to at least 50 hours of quilting.
Up close they are sloppy with lots of knots and mistakes. But visually and as a whole, I almost like these quilt backs better than their fronts.
Okay, that’s all for now. I’m bad at keeping up with these daily instagram things, but I’ll do my best and post part two here at the end of the month. In the meantime, I urge you to check out #igquiltfest2024 if you’re interested in quilting. There are lots of good things to see and learn. Thanks for reading!
Lovely article. Thanks for sharing
Your quilts are gorgeous and so unique. Thank you for sharing them. It can feel liberating to rip out those stitches and start again!