Quilting Quandary

I've been crafty since I was young. I remember playing with my Barbies as a child, long before I had any true skills, and wrapping those dolls with tissues tied with yarn to make beautiful (in my mind) dresses. I made Barbie houses with cardboard boxes and stacks of books.  It was also as a child that I learned to crochet. I made endless yarn chains as I didn't learn any other stitches or turns until I was older. As a teenager, I painted, and wrote ....poetry, stories, journals.....writing was both creative and cathartic for me. That teenage angst had to go somewhere, right?

Sewing, on the other hand, has never come easily to me. Sometimes I would sit with my Aunt Ann while she was mending, and she would give me a threaded (but not knotted) (hey, is that a double negative?) needle so I could sew along next to her. My older sisters could knock out jumpers and matching headbands without breaking a sweat, but not me. Even my father could sew. When he reupholstered furniture, he would take the fabric off the chair/couch/footstool and use that as a pattern for the new material, and he would take over the family sewing machine. A family friend once tried to explain the mechanics of a sewing pattern, including how to expand the pattern for her generous bosom, much to my horror. When I had to actually sew something in my eighth grade Home Economics class, I searched and searched for what I thought would be the easiest pattern for me. Looks can be deceiving, that's for sure. While my classmates raced on to their second and third outfits, I struggled with my "simple" dress, yearning for seventh grade Home Economics and cooking. When I needed costumes for Halloween or school plays, my mother made them. When I wanted something stylish and alluring (again, in my own mind), I would take a slinky dress, cut it to waist length, cut it again straight up the front, and weave shoelaces into just the right spot to tie the sides together under my chest. I took that method one step further when I played Helen of Troy in one of my high school plays, "Persephone". I cut a simple white bedsheet to make a plunging neckline, added those ever reliable shoelaces to pull snugly across the front, and stitched up the sides to made a drapey toga-ish robe. I actually did receive compliments on the Helen of Troy costume. Maybe because I was one of the few characters in Hades wearing white and I stood out amongst a sea of black shrouds.

As a young mother, I once did a passable job creating a tiger costume for my son one Halloween. The rest of the time, I stocked up on iron-on patches. I limited my mending to those items that required only straight seam stitching. Mending was a chore I put off and put off and put off until I could say "Hey, if this has been sitting here for a year and I didn't need it, then maybe I just don't need it at all."  I never met a sewing machine that liked me. I would read the manuals, follow the directions, pop the bobbin in, thread the machine using all the correct guides, adjust the tension, and somehow wind up with a nice smooth stitch on top of the fabric, but a snarl of knots on the underside. I convinced myself that I had some negative magnetic effect on sewing machines that would forever prevent me from creating anything from fabric. Then, in a craft class, I discovered Wonder Under fusible webbing and glue guns. I lent my sewing machine to my sister-in-law (an able seamtress) and never saw it again. Nor did I miss it.

Quilts were not appealing to me. I categorized them as too “country”, too “rustic”, too “log cabin”, too “Little House on the Prairie”.  Then, for a few years around the holidays, I began noticing “Wedding Ring” and Christmas themed quilts that would fit right in with my need to decorate too much at this time of year. My interest was piqued. And no, I didn’t buy a quilt, because I also have this stubborn streak that prevents me from buying anything that I think I can make. How hard could it be to make a quilt? They’re just square pieces of fabric with straight seams, right?

Maybe out of curiosity, maybe for some inspiration, maybe to make some quilting connections to get started, I went to “Journey 2011 ~ A Contemporary Quilt and Fiber Art Show” this past January.

I was so, so wrong. And so out of my element. These were not the quilts your grandmother tossed on the bed. These were truly works of art, created with paint and metal and fibers that I would never imagine could be part of a quilt. They were multi-dimensional, begging to be touched. There was even a full-sized mermaid (well, technically, I’ve never seen a mermaid, so I can’t say if it was truly full-sized, but it was definitely human-sized), leaning out of her quilt like a ship’s prow, but she was purchased and stolen away before I could take a picture of her.

Here are some beautiful quilts:

I believe this is "Water Lilies" by Deborah Ann Morgan:

"Lighthouse Beach" by Carol DeCesare (this is a local beach in Sanibel, Florida):


"Coming Home" by Carol Marshall


"Mangroves" by Lisa Gorski ~ "In a 2008 AQU challenge based on a picture of Red Mangroves, I decided to take the picture and turn it to under the water's edge, looking up into the canopy. Roots were made from carboard tubes from pant hangers, covered with silk, yarns and fibers. Barnacles made from cardboard tubes covered with painted, heat shrunk tyvek wrapped with fibers/yarns. Canopy is machine thread. Fish stuffed with metallic fabric and machine appliqued, fins are sheer."


"Rusting Cans" by Carol Marshall ~ Rust dyed cotton, recycled blue jeans, can tops, machine quilted. Inspiration came from a Quilting Art book article using denim jeans and rusting of fabric. Fabric was from a demonstration at SWFQG show 2010.


"Art Festival" by Deborah Ann Morgan ~ "Art Festival is pieced with over 200 different fabrics. Each piece is arranged to have light travel through the quilt and bring the eye to the fringe. The beads and fringe are handmade. The piecing and quilting are machine done. My inspration comes from my friend's design and my love of weavings. This quilt will always be my favorite."

"Serendipity" by Carol Marshall ~ "This design uses different sizes of lace that I have collected over time. Some of the beading is from leftover odds and ends of trims. The colorful pieces are from a tapestry catalog that seemed unique. The buttons were from my mother's stash that got handed down to me to add a theme to the piece."


"DARkly FURgotten" by Patricia Anderson Turner ~ "A doctor described treating this Darfur woman for wounds to her wrists: she had been hung from a tree and molested by the Janjaweed [ I may have spelled that wrong; I can't read my own notes] Militia for three days. I have sewn her amidst a sea of trees representing Darfur's countless victims. She holds a replica of Earth based on a satellite image of our planet's sand storms and asks "Will our story remain darkly forgotten?"


This piece is by Dr. Joan Frantz, a Fort Myers eye doctor and quilter who lost her life to Ovarian Cancer at age 51. Her work is very whimsical. Notice the stockings and purses on these birds!


"Earth-Air-Fire-Water" by Betty Ann Seeman. This was hands-down my favorite quilt in this show. I loved the size (57x57) and theme. Very new age and earthy. Then I read the artist's description and loved it more: "Original quilt design created using ambigram graphics designed by John Langdon for the book "Angels and Demons" and used with his permission. Ambigrams read the same right side up and upside down. This quilt was quilted in seven sections bound separately them connected with  a decorative stitch. "

Overall, I've completely changed my previous notions about quilts and now recognize this as a unique art form. I'm not sure if it would be too ambitious of me to take on learning something new that's going to take up a lot of room in the house. I've already converted the guest room to a scrap room. I don't have any more rooms to dedicate to quilting. I think this will have to stay a "someday" dream for now....but I will still enjoy going to local quilt shows. I'm sure they will give me some inspiration for card making and scrapbooking.