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)

Radiating Squares

So far, 2018 has been a lot about unpacking baggage.  Some that I was ready to look at (this quilt, for one) and others that feel more like someone ripped open and dumped all my hard memories out into the present.  Old ideas, old beliefs, that were well hidden and nearly forgotten about.  But the social/political climate in America right now has many people uncomfortable as we look long and hard at choices we have made, action we took or didn't take, and secrets we have kept.  I'm struggling a lot with this.  I think it's fair to say I'm overwhelmed but functioning.

For as strong as I've gotten in these last 3 years, it seems the next level of adulting is always more challenging than the last.  This past weekend Rich and I finally got to take some pics of my finished Radiating Squares quilt.  Running through the yard was a much needed release from the stress of my reality-- dad had a stroke Friday night and once again I feel so very far away, both in distance and in time.  I was well cared for by my chosen family though.  Friends checking in,  which I am so grateful for, but I had so little news to share.  Even now, it still seems I am waiting, waiting.  Not part of it, just watching and hurting.  I don't yet know if or when I will be able to travel to see him.  But in this decision, more baggage opens.  If I go, am I the prodigal daughter?  Am I dramatic/comic relief or am I actually helping?  I have to believe that my presence means something, because if I don't, I just want to hide and shove all of these awful thoughts right back into the bag they came from.

Tonight I'm going to make the label and prep this quilt to go off to its new home.  Sometimes you can shake out the baggage, accept it for the role it played, and let it go.  I'm happy this quilt is almost done and ready to become part of someone else's story.

If you're curious about how this quilt began, my old posts are here.  It was part of a 2010 bee, originally inspired by a quilt I saw at the Empire Guild show in 2009. 

Tie Dye! (or Chicago for me)

The kids and I tried tie dye for the first time earlier this month and it turned out great.   I wanted to give it another go so I ordered supplies and had them sent directly to my dad's place.  Last weekend we all got to dye t-shirts and dish cloths.  It was definitely worth the mess (and blue fingernails).
George and Jack had a bit of experience so they knew what designs they wanted to try.  Jack calls his grey shirt "Lumberjack" because of the suspender-like stripes.  George's heart impressed all of us.   I could do this over and over.  I want to experiment more with single colors and maybe mixing my own colors?  I don't think I'm ready to try anything but the standard tulip dyes, but they do fade after a few washings so I need to figure out how to stop that from happening.  There are so many experiments I want to try.  Pretty soon we won't have anything to wear but tie dye..

These are the first attempts done in NY on 4th of July.  We applied dye right on the grass so our feet and knees got pretty colorful.  I liked how that allowed us to control the color placement though.  In the Chicago batch, we used a plastic sheet to work on and it allowed excess die to run and pool.  Many of our shirts have random spots of unintended color (blue on the bottoms of George's pink heart sleeves, green in the white "frame" I was trying to get on the heart sleeve tee).  Our feet were cleaner but the dye got everywhere.  I think I will try without the protective sheet next time.

 

And the batch from Chicago:

I realize that a few of these are pics have already been shared on instagram and facebook, but I am pretty fed up with main stream social media these days.  It all feels so... out of my control.  So I wanted to document life over here again.  

Chicago for the kids

I took the kids to Chicago for a short trip.  We don't go often and I really wanted them to get some quality time with my side of the family.  I also wanted them to experience being in the places and spaces that created my world as a kid.  My grandmothers' houses.  Their backyards.  Sitting at the same tables and seeing the same views as I did.  We also had a few outing/adventures, including a trip on public transportation.  I still chuckle that I feel totally comfortable taking public transportation alone in any major Japanese city, but trying to figure out how to get from my dad's house in the suburbs to downtown (a distance of 17 miles) was such a challenge.  Anyway, we made it.  We even attended a reunion for my high school singing group and they got to play with the kids of the people I hung out with 20+ years ago.  Memories made. Pictures taken.  Love shared.  I'm glad we went.

Blogging-- or can it just be my online journal?

If you've had a blog for over 8 years, then you may remember that wonderful time around 2010 of quilt blogging.. when there was such a positive energy floating around, just as the modern quilt guild movement got started (notice I didn't capitalize the guild, back then it was just a really good idea).  Many bloggers who experienced that time have lamented over the years that blogging has changed, the community is gone, it's just not the same... and it's true.  I'm sure blog posts have been written on it, this doesn't need to be another one.  I do miss that era.  But I also miss my own early days of blogging, back in 2006, when I was reading a whole bunch of really awesome craft and home blogs and I wanted to write!  I wanted to say something and see if anybody out there would read it.  And they did...
But in the beginning, it was mostly for me.  To track my projects.  To sort out my thoughts on trends and process.  To record my journey.  That's what I want to do again.

Because-- I'm not in the thick of quilt industry stuff anymore. It was fun to be on the fringe for a while, to know people and watch my friends become successful.  But my life has changed, as things do.  I'm still on my journey, it just doesn't look like theirs anymore.  It has always been mine and I have always written from my unique perspective, but I think the intent is different.  I think this space can be useful to me now.

Over New Years I put up a design wall.  Rich said to me, "It's not your place until you put up a design wall."  Now that's the truth.

It is for him.  He is important to me.
We make quilts for people when they are important to us.  To strengthen that connection and to spend time focusing on it.  It's a good way to spend time.

I don't know what other quilts I want to make.  I would like to finish up old projects and let them move on.  To become useful.  My closets are full and I need to make space.  My goal for 2018 is to finish 10 quilts.  Not start and finish, just finish.  I have jotted a list in my paper journal, it's not at 10 yet, but we'll see where the year takes me.

Now I'm working on just these two.. the string pieced crossroads (I know this block has a name, but I have forgotten it) and Travel Quilt 4, from my last post.  Still sorting out a functional sewing space in the new apartment.. I have a lot of multi-use spaces so I can't keep projects out for any length of time.  Oh!  I also bordered and basted Travel Quilt #5!  So I'll also need to find somewhere to set up the Janome so I can put some lines of machine quilting into it.   Here's a teaser shot for anyone who missed it on instagram.  One side of the border went on a bit warped, I noticed while basting, but I'll work with it.  I am so so happy this top is done.  There's a lot of my life in this quilt and I'm looking forward to revisiting it as I quilt and bind.

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.

Sept 6, 2017