The world continues to turn, time marches on, and changes happen. People die and graduate, they get married and have babies, they put on shows and have raffles, and all of these events seem to call for quilts. In just one month, I received invitations to my niece’s graduation from college, my husband’s boss’ wife’s baby shower, my husband’s niece’s first baby, and my nephew in Minnesota’s wedding. I was asked by three non-profit groups to make them a quilt to raffle off, both wearable art groups I belong to wanted new garments for their fashion shows, my County Fair quilts weren’t finished yet, and my daughter needed help to finish the quilt she was making for her teacher. And that’s all just in one month. So what’s a quilter to do?
Sometimes we get sucked down into a kind of a black hole where we find we’re making quilts for everybody else, and never get a chance to make something just for the sheer joy of it, just to experiment with new techniques. I think we should “practice random kindness and senseless works of beauty,” and if we make do make a quilt for someone, that should not be a signal that we will, therefore, make one for everyone else in the world, forever and ever, amen. It should, rather, be looked on by others as cosmic karma, a beneficent gift from the gods, and the person who received the quilt just plain got lucky.
I have, reluctantly, come to the conclusion that a person cannot make a quilt for every person and organization, however wonderful they might be. I will do as much as I possibly can to be generous, to help out and make quilts for people who need them, or who would appreciate them; but I try to remember that there are people who just don’t know about quilts. For them, it’s perfectly permissible to buy a silver serving dish, or matching bathroom bibelots, or a walnut whatnot instead of making them a quilt they don’t want or need. Yes, Virginia, there really, truly, actually are people who would prefer to get a silk blouse, or a $20.00 bill, than a quilt. You can try giving them this simple quiz:
1. Show them a picture of a Baltimore Bride’s quilt with 1/2” cross-hatched hand quilting. Don’t make them a quilt if they say “Why did somebody sew all that stuff on top of a mattress pad?”
2. Ask them if they still have the quilt you made them three years ago. Don’t make them one if they say: “Oh, you mean the one we wrapped the refrigerator in when we moved?” “That old thing?” “What quilt?”
3. Ask. For instance, say to a teenager - “Bertrand, darling, which would you rather have for graduation - a quilt or a Green Day CD?” Don’t be surprised when they opt for the CD, and don’t be offended. Simply thank your lucky stars that that’s one quilt you won’t feel guilty about not making.
And when you DO wind up making someone else a quilt, be prepared for the probability that the quilt they want isn’t one you would choose to make. It would be fine and dandy if everybody had the same kind of taste and thought the same things are beautiful; the problem is that things don’t always work out that way. I’ve made a lot of quilts I don’t like very much for people I love a whole lot. I made a “Teddy Bear’s Picnic” for my sister’s baby; a blue & peach, hearts and flowers quilt for my friend’s child that is so sweet it makes my teeth hurt to look at it; an oh-so-cute rainbow quilt for my other sister’s baby; and a Dresden Plate with a little pink rosebuds and a Grandmother’s Flower Garden in the center of each plate, although I shudder to admit it now. Each time I make one of these, I resolve to NEVER make a “cute” quilt again. I never was very good at keeping resolutions.
I try to make every quilt I make - whether for myself or for others - a work of art; however, I have my doubts about the one I made for my husband. My husband is a darling, and buys fabric for me wherever he goes. This is great, but strange fabrics started to appear along with the batiks and lovely fabrics he usually brought home. Suddenly, there were fabrics with prints of racing cars on them; red fabric with spark plugs, wheels and screwdrivers; fabric with black and white checkerboards like finishing flags; all hidden among the batiks and hand-dyes.
I don’t like fabrics with prints of “things” on them; am pretty tired of black and white checkerboards; dislike red, black and yellow (Porsche’s signature colors) combined together; and think car racing is pretty silly; nevertheless, the quilt I just finished for my husband is a red, yellow, black and white checkerboard, racing car quilt. My husband’s Porsche friends’ signatures in the red slashes give this quilt some socially redeeming value, but I still don’t like it.
I still haven’t figured out why I made it. Maybe it was because of the way the car fabric kept mysteriously, silently, persistently appearing. Maybe it was the way my husband tolerated my frantic attempts to get three quilts ready for the Fair (staying up to 2 a.m. for a few nights, not cooking for two weeks, little things like that). Probably, though, it had something to do with the way he would ask, “So, what are you going to work on now?”
To my mind, this quilt makes a pretty good picnic blanket or hammock cover. It is named “The Cosmic Racetrack” or “There’s No Accounting for Taste.” It took about two weeks to piece, two days to quilt and a few hours to hand bind. It’s not too bad, I guess. Porsche people and even some of my quilting friends like it. But, let’s face it, it’s not ART, at least not to me. It is art to my husband, though; it uses his colors, his symbols, and says something important to him that I had never said before in any other way.
Sometimes we make quilts we don’t like for the people we love. Why do we do this? Perhaps we’re filling a need in someone else or an empty space in ourselves, or perhaps we simply want to give something only we can give to please someone we love. Everything else falls by the wayside--our own color and design preferences don’t matter; we are creating for them. Oddly enough, in this essentially selfless process we often learn, grow and develop in spite of ourselves. We may wind up with a wild and tacky red, black and yellow racing car quilt, but perhaps we discover how to work with odd color schemes, or how to do something interesting with that tired old pattern Aunt Edith just had to have on her bed, or an entirely new method to set in corners. If nothing else, we have a good excuse to go shopping and find fabric for the quilt we really want to make.
If you practice “random kindness” and make a quilt for someone--not because you have to, not because you made one for everyone else, but just because you wanted to--it will be a lovely surprise. You must be sure, however, that you give it AWAY, with no strings attached. Just because.
It is probably best not to check up on a quilt again after you’ve given it away, because the chances are that if you do, the dog is sleeping on it.
Sometimes we get sucked down into a kind of a black hole where we find we’re making quilts for everybody else, and never get a chance to make something just for the sheer joy of it, just to experiment with new techniques. I think we should “practice random kindness and senseless works of beauty,” and if we make do make a quilt for someone, that should not be a signal that we will, therefore, make one for everyone else in the world, forever and ever, amen. It should, rather, be looked on by others as cosmic karma, a beneficent gift from the gods, and the person who received the quilt just plain got lucky.
I have, reluctantly, come to the conclusion that a person cannot make a quilt for every person and organization, however wonderful they might be. I will do as much as I possibly can to be generous, to help out and make quilts for people who need them, or who would appreciate them; but I try to remember that there are people who just don’t know about quilts. For them, it’s perfectly permissible to buy a silver serving dish, or matching bathroom bibelots, or a walnut whatnot instead of making them a quilt they don’t want or need. Yes, Virginia, there really, truly, actually are people who would prefer to get a silk blouse, or a $20.00 bill, than a quilt. You can try giving them this simple quiz:
1. Show them a picture of a Baltimore Bride’s quilt with 1/2” cross-hatched hand quilting. Don’t make them a quilt if they say “Why did somebody sew all that stuff on top of a mattress pad?”
2. Ask them if they still have the quilt you made them three years ago. Don’t make them one if they say: “Oh, you mean the one we wrapped the refrigerator in when we moved?” “That old thing?” “What quilt?”
3. Ask. For instance, say to a teenager - “Bertrand, darling, which would you rather have for graduation - a quilt or a Green Day CD?” Don’t be surprised when they opt for the CD, and don’t be offended. Simply thank your lucky stars that that’s one quilt you won’t feel guilty about not making.
And when you DO wind up making someone else a quilt, be prepared for the probability that the quilt they want isn’t one you would choose to make. It would be fine and dandy if everybody had the same kind of taste and thought the same things are beautiful; the problem is that things don’t always work out that way. I’ve made a lot of quilts I don’t like very much for people I love a whole lot. I made a “Teddy Bear’s Picnic” for my sister’s baby; a blue & peach, hearts and flowers quilt for my friend’s child that is so sweet it makes my teeth hurt to look at it; an oh-so-cute rainbow quilt for my other sister’s baby; and a Dresden Plate with a little pink rosebuds and a Grandmother’s Flower Garden in the center of each plate, although I shudder to admit it now. Each time I make one of these, I resolve to NEVER make a “cute” quilt again. I never was very good at keeping resolutions.
I try to make every quilt I make - whether for myself or for others - a work of art; however, I have my doubts about the one I made for my husband. My husband is a darling, and buys fabric for me wherever he goes. This is great, but strange fabrics started to appear along with the batiks and lovely fabrics he usually brought home. Suddenly, there were fabrics with prints of racing cars on them; red fabric with spark plugs, wheels and screwdrivers; fabric with black and white checkerboards like finishing flags; all hidden among the batiks and hand-dyes.
I don’t like fabrics with prints of “things” on them; am pretty tired of black and white checkerboards; dislike red, black and yellow (Porsche’s signature colors) combined together; and think car racing is pretty silly; nevertheless, the quilt I just finished for my husband is a red, yellow, black and white checkerboard, racing car quilt. My husband’s Porsche friends’ signatures in the red slashes give this quilt some socially redeeming value, but I still don’t like it.
I still haven’t figured out why I made it. Maybe it was because of the way the car fabric kept mysteriously, silently, persistently appearing. Maybe it was the way my husband tolerated my frantic attempts to get three quilts ready for the Fair (staying up to 2 a.m. for a few nights, not cooking for two weeks, little things like that). Probably, though, it had something to do with the way he would ask, “So, what are you going to work on now?”
To my mind, this quilt makes a pretty good picnic blanket or hammock cover. It is named “The Cosmic Racetrack” or “There’s No Accounting for Taste.” It took about two weeks to piece, two days to quilt and a few hours to hand bind. It’s not too bad, I guess. Porsche people and even some of my quilting friends like it. But, let’s face it, it’s not ART, at least not to me. It is art to my husband, though; it uses his colors, his symbols, and says something important to him that I had never said before in any other way.
Sometimes we make quilts we don’t like for the people we love. Why do we do this? Perhaps we’re filling a need in someone else or an empty space in ourselves, or perhaps we simply want to give something only we can give to please someone we love. Everything else falls by the wayside--our own color and design preferences don’t matter; we are creating for them. Oddly enough, in this essentially selfless process we often learn, grow and develop in spite of ourselves. We may wind up with a wild and tacky red, black and yellow racing car quilt, but perhaps we discover how to work with odd color schemes, or how to do something interesting with that tired old pattern Aunt Edith just had to have on her bed, or an entirely new method to set in corners. If nothing else, we have a good excuse to go shopping and find fabric for the quilt we really want to make.
If you practice “random kindness” and make a quilt for someone--not because you have to, not because you made one for everyone else, but just because you wanted to--it will be a lovely surprise. You must be sure, however, that you give it AWAY, with no strings attached. Just because.
It is probably best not to check up on a quilt again after you’ve given it away, because the chances are that if you do, the dog is sleeping on it.