My life as a quiltmaker (for chronological order, read oldest post to newest)

Thursday, February 22, 2007

4. Quilter + nursery school = House on a Hill

Unencumbered by batting, I proceeded to make a third quilt, unwittingly beginning work on a “series” as I made the first of several window coverings completed over the years. My older son had come home from nursery school excited to show me how he and his classmates had been sprinkling grated crayons on paper and ironing them to form colorful designs. Well! I had crayons. I had old sheets. I had a playroom window without a curtain. I had a picture in a magazine of a house on a hill. These ingredients came together in the hand- and machine-appliqué curtain shown. Themes that have endured through my quilting years had already begun to emerge in this third effort: a combination of hand and machine work when the handwork became too tedious or too slow; use of fabrics other than cotton; and a “binding” made from the kind of “shiny” fabric that was more commonly used on edges of blankets. I would prefer to think of the recurring themes as my way of repeating what worked, but it wasn't so much that these things worked particularly well as that they were the only solutions I had as yet devised. In hindsight, I realize that I loved solving problems as much as I loved sewing, and I kept trying to find new ways to use my solutions. Which often led to new problems. Which was GREAT because it gave me new chances to solve them. I now realize that I was making progress and was learning for myself (the hard way, aka the way I learn everything!) the reasons why legions of quilters before me had chosen some processes and materials over others.

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