Making, Publicly

Earlier this year I made the decision to start quilting on my 15-minute breaks at work.  The building has a beautiful lobby with tons of natural light and the 10:30 a.m. sunshine -- it's unlike anything.   To just sit there and sew for 15 minutes.  Since February, everyday I've been quilting in public in my super posh office building and I have made so much progress!  Travel quilt #4 (which was originally started for my 2013 book Quilting on the Go) was going to be the big quilt project in the book but when we were going through what to include, the art team didn't like the colors -- they didn't think it fit in with everything else in the book and so the idea was scrapped.  Of course I had already started making the quilt...

I wrote on the stars as I had been doing with Travel Quilt #3.  I would write the date and the place- city and state, and if there was an event-- My cousin Janel's wedding, George's 3rd birthday, etc.  It sat and waited for 5ish years and then I picked it up again.  I'm not doing a lot of pleasure travel these days so Travel Quilt #4 was mostly stitched at the dojo, in the laundromat, also on Richard's couch, and on that little couch in the lobby in my office.

photo by @marini.richard

And it's finished. This May I finished Travel Quilt 4.  It still has the templates in the sides and I have to top stitch  down the borders... don't really know what color I want to go with yet .. (*in other news I have a new sewing space! But I'll save that for different post )

So yes, I have been posting sporadically on Instagram for #TheHundredDayProject where I have pledged to spend 100 days quilting in public. So far so good but I usually don't on the weekends because I'd rather stay in and quilt at home. 

When I'm out there quilting in the world, a lot of people ask me (mostly my co-workers) what I'm doing and how long it's going to take and if I would sell my quilts or if I do sell my quilts ... and the answer is:

I don't want to monetize my hobby.  I don't want to commercialize what brings me comfort.  I make quilts for me and those people around me in my nest of comfort where I feel both powerful and soft.  ;)

I think more people would benefit from the task of making things for pleasure.  The repetition of it.  The slow and steady progress.  And the satisfaction that comes, even many years later, from being able to USE what you've made. 
(I am sitting on Travel Quilt #2 right now)

Travel Quilt #4

So what is Travel Quilt #4?  How did it happen?  Why did it stall?
Seeing as I've chosen this to be my bring along project for the foreseeable future, I thought I'd give a little backstory.  Also, I got a new laptop and finally have wi-fi in the new house, so woohoo, time to blog.

I had about 2 stars left to piece on Travel Quilt #3 when I had a phone call with my London publishers setting the basis and rough synopsis for what would become Quilting on the Go.  They wanted 10 projects but none that had been shown publicly before.  10 projects, English paper pieced, by hand.. in under 12 months. (timeline changed during, I think it was more like 15 months in the end).  I knew I wanted a big star quilt in there and with their original guidelines, I couldn't use Travel Quilt #3.  I had tons of ideas, so I decided to make a Trip Around the World variation with 2" diamonds.  The color scheme came from my favorite scarf at the time (which sits in front of me now in a partially unpacked box of Japanese keepsakes..).  I cut, basted, stitched.. but this would be one of the last projects to photograph so it wasn't my main focus.  I worked on all the photography samples for the tiny sewing kit and hexagon pillow, which would get photographed first, and pieced diamonds in my favorite fabrics in between the rest of the book work.  A few months into the project, the creative director emailed asking for progress pics and color schemes of the 10 projects so they could do planning at their end. Unlike Get Started Quilting, with Quilting on the Go, I had full control of color scheme and fabric choice, and man, I was having fun.  But when I sent over the plans and progress pics, the team loved all but Travel Quilt #4.  Here's what they had to go off of:

See, a quilter has creative vision.  I mean, all artists do, right?  So I knew this tiny cluster of diamonds wasn't representative of the full quilt I was making, and I guess I didn't clearly articulate that in these early planning emails.  What they saw was a bunch of muddled pumpkin-y orange and beige, which really seemed out of line with the other project color palettes.  So they scrapped it.  We were getting pressed for time and decided to include TQ#3 instead.  A good choice, in hindsight.  It's an awesome quilt and really representative of my style of intuitive scrap quilting.  I feel I was able to capture my process and meaning in how that quilt was eventually described and taught in the book.  But, TQ#4 sat in a pile, and eventually in a bag. I knew it would get done some day, and that brings us to now.

There are no deadlines.  I don't even have a bed in mind for this to end up on.  It would have looked great on my old couch, but that couch didn't make it into this new home.. so I will stitch, as I do. Progress pics may not look too exciting (especially all the #quiltinginpublic ones on instagram) because this involves a lot of blocks that are exactly the same.  I almost wonder if I'll even be able to keep motivated for the outer rings, but I've got you all to encourage me, right?  ("You all" assuming more than a handful of friends even read my lil neglected blog these days, feel free to comment to let me know you're here, ok?)  I also encourage any and everyone to join me in this diamond madness and play along with the #60degreediamondQAL for as much as you can.  As before, it's super relaxed with just about no rules.. English paper piecing and 60 degree diamonds.  That's it.

So, that's my story.  And it will grow from here.  5 years ago I couldn't have told you my life would look like this (sitting on a completed TQ#2 with a CAT in my cozy divorcee apartment), and I have no idea where I'll be when this project reaches completion.  I hope I'm still blogging though.  We'll see.

60 Degree Diamond QAL Revival