#igquiltfest part two

In case you missed part one, in March quilters responded to daily prompts on instagram as part of something called #igquiltfest. I did my best to keep up. Here are the second half of my posts.

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Day 14: Recent Finish

This quilt was a birthday present for my son Hank who turned 18 a few weeks ago. He is proudly queer, proudly autistic, and proudly obsessed with Doctor Who. (And he gave his blessing for this post, in case anyone is wondering.)

It was Hank’s younger brother who suggested I make this quilt. His name is Milo and today is his 11th birthday! He’ll tell you we collaborated on this because he came up with the idea…and I made it.

I’m protective of my kids’ privacy but I think it’s okay to say that this symbol - the pride flag - is for Hank as much about the community he’s found through being queer as it is about who he likes. Oh how I love this community. I love my queer friends and family. I love the adults who have helped Hank find safe and welcoming queer spaces. Ben, Bee, Kate, and others: you guys are angels. Thank you. 🙏

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Day 16: Favorite Quilting Book

This book was published in 2002 in conjunction with a traveling exhibition called The Quilts of Gee’s Bend. The Gee’s Bend quilters are a multigenerational community of Black women and their ancestors living in an isolated rural area of Alabama.

I bought this book back in 2002 and it’s the first time I remember having my interest peaked by quilting. I don’t remember what I thought of it before I stumbled on The Quilts of Gee’s Bend, but quilting probably would have seemed prohibitively technical to me back then.

These quilts are all improvised. They’re made by master quilters, but they are more concerned with color, pattern, and making use of the fabric at hand than they are with perfection.

This book and these quilters were awe-inspiring to me. They also made quilting seem possible. Twenty-something years later, these are still some of the most expressive, ecstatic, visually exciting quilts I’ve ever seen.

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Day 17: Quilt of Significance

Last year my sister asked me if I had a photo of the butterfly wings that my mom sewed for us when we were kids in the 80s. They were made of felt and attached to little vests. She wanted to show her daughter who was into butterflies and contemplating a butterfly-themed birthday party. I did have a photo. I texted it to her and offered to make my niece a pair of her own.

By most people’s definition, these wings are probably not a quilt. But I think they’re close enough. I’m not sure what this “quilt of significance” prompt means, but this project felt significant to me. I adapted my mom’s idea to make a gift for my niece who I adore. I used all my sewing and problem solving skills to puzzle out how to do it.

I improvised the wings but I followed a pattern for the vest - the Pippa Vest from MeAndKiddoPatterns on Etsy. It’s cute. I recommend it. It was the first time I followed a sewing pattern and it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.

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Day 18: Favorite Color

Ultramarine Blue: for sewing, painting, and wearing.

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Day 19: Favorite Tool

I have a quilting hoop on an articulated stand that makes hand quilting a lot less awkward. The stand is lightweight and I often think it could be sturdier, but it’s easy to move around, which I like. I think it’s called “Quilter’s Wonder.”

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Day 20: Comfort Zone

I love embroidery. It’s portable - I can bring it on a plane or a camping trip - and I find the somewhat mindless, repetitive motion of it really soothing. I can embroider for hours and not feel bored. In a past life I was surely a medieval nun, sitting by a convent window, embroidering from morning til night.

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Day 22: Most Loved Quilt

I don’t have a good photo of it, but this meticulous Amish number that Mac and Taylor gave me for Christmas is my most loved quilt.

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Oops. I fell far behind on those March quilting posts. Here is Day 26: Binding Technique

So far I am lazy and use exclusively a self-binding method. This means the quilt back is cut larger than the top and batting. It folds over the top and under itself and is sewn in place to create the binding. Though in the case of the butterfly wings the top folded over instead. I used three different thread colors to match the fabric and make the stitches seem invisible on the fronts of the wings.

I’d like to bind a quilt with strips because I think it looks better, but I generally think this self-binding method looks fine and it's so easy.

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Day 29: Favorite Finish

I’ve only made a handful of quilts but this one is my favorite. It’s improvised. I didn’t plan it out before I started and each section built on the one that came before.

Whatever remaining hang-ups I had about quilting - about not having the technical skill or patience to do what I wanted to do; about being an inexact person and a sloppy hand-sewer - sort of faded away as I worked on this quilt. Not because I had gained skills and precision, but because I felt like I was figuring out my own methods and my own way into it. This - it seems - is an important part of art-making for me. I don’t like to be taught how to do things. I like to teach myself. I like to reinvent the wheel. I don't know why. It’s a psychological mystery I am yet to unpack.

I call this my Medieval Death Quilt. The text is excerpted from a poem I wrote. I’ve written more about it and shared the poem on my newsletter, Slowpoke.

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Day 31: Favorite Post

I saw so many great quilts on Instagram this month. It’s hard to choose a favorite post, but I like this one by @quiltingjetgirl a lot. I like this evocative quilt in this sublime landscape and I like the message.

Like a lot of people, I started quilting in earnest during the pandemic. It somehow helped to keep anxiety and dread at bay. Working with your hands is powerful medicine. If you’d like to know more about the how and why, @ayeletw has written beautifully about it for the New Yorker this week.

Repost @quiltingjetgirl
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I mentioned this in a workshop I taught yesterday morning: there are times that I’ve been so deep in grief that I had trouble remembering to do basic things for myself like eat, and there are other times in grief when the only way I could get through the day was by spending time in my studio quilting. I created Beacon as I started to climb out of a deep well of grief as a reminder that, just like a lighthouse light flashes, energy for creative pursuits will naturally pulse in life. And that’s okay.
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My husband and I also have a motto of “biology first” which is kind of like our shorthand reminder that we need to put the oxygen mask on ourself first. As I was making Beacon, I was thinking about what refuels me and the tools and people in my life who call me back to safe harbors.
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#BeaconQuilt #IGQuiltFest2024 #IGQuiltFest2024Day17 #QuiltOfSignificance

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That’s all for #igquiltfest2024. Thanks to all the people who talked quilts with me in March. Thanks to you for following along.

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