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Quilting Activities I Recommend, Part II

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I’ve never been much of a “traditional” quilter. Early in my sewing life, I resisted the perfectionist tendencies that seem to creep into traditional quilts. I thought it was ridiculous that my 4-H sewing projects were judged on having perfect points or that people would insist that there was a right or wrong way to do anything. I was an artist, after all! That resistance was part of why I didn’t start quilting until I was 25, a full 15 years after I started trying to make my own clothes. Quilting seemed so tedious and quilters seemed uptight. That brings me to today. Today I love quilting. I could go on and on about the ways that quilting has improved my mental health, logical thinking skills, time management, and even my own tendencies toward perfectionism and anxiety.  Once I learned some of the tricks of quilting (I love this book for intermediate quilting tricks), it became a meditative practice. There is something so calming about sitting down with 100 beautiful little bits of f
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Making My Own Wardrobe

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In 2022, I set a goal of making 50% of the clothes I wear. I didn’t make that goal, not even close. But, I loved getting back to apparel design and construction. I set that same goal for 2023 and I’m getting much closer. People are often curious about how and why I am doing this, especially given how affordable fast fashion makes clothes and how expensive apparel fabric can be. As a purely financial decision, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. So, I thought I’d explain a bit more about my reasons and what I’ve learned so far. Reason #1: Resisting the Consumption Urge of Late Capitalism Okay, so not everyone spends their work days thinking through the evils of capitalism, but as a sociologist I have spent a good deal of time thinking about how capitalism, mass production, and fast fashion has shaped my relationship to clothes (and everything else, really). Increasingly, I have been thinking about how to make my life more local, smaller in scale, smaller in impact. It’s not easy and, of cou
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Quilting Activities I Recommend, Part I

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 Geez, that whole pandemic thing really changed a lot. One thing it didn’t change for me is my love of sewing. In fact, sewing became one of my most important outlets, especially during the early days when there was so much uncertainty and anxiety.  Over the last couple of years, I’ve tried out many new ways of building out my sewing skills and connecting to others. There are two quilting activities that I now recommend. This post is about the first and I’ll update about the second over the next couple of days.  Early on in the pandemic, I wanted a monthly subscription of quilting related stuff. I tried a couple of the fabric and notions boxes, but just didn’t feel inspired. So, I kept looking and eventually came across the  Murder Mystery Quilt , which is a monthly quilt pattern, plus a chapter of a mystery novel, plus a facebook group that the creator claims is filled with “the nicest quilters on the internet.” She’s not wrong! Each subscriber is put in a small group where people sha
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Unconventional Quilts and the Love of Breaking Rules

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It's been too long since I updated my blog. Mostly that is because the academic year has started back up and I have a lot going on with my day job. I am teaching a new class that I absolutely LOVE . It is a theory class, which means it is pretty challenging. My students have been great and they are putting in the work to understand fairly complex ideas. It is also prompting me to think more about my own intellectual and creative inspirations, which are are varied and a little bit unconventional. Some might even say they are 'heterodox' in that they defy orthodox practices, beliefs, and knowledge. While the term 'heterodox' is sometimes used to chastise individuals or demean particular perspectives, I use it as a reminder to think in new ways, using whatever tools are available to come up with new ways of approaching the world. This is evident in the ways I teach, especially through combining different theoretical traditions in new ways and bringing in non-schola
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Hexagon One Block Wonder - My Latest Quilting Fixation

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I learned about One Block Wonder quilts on Instagram. I was blown away by the first one I saw. If you ever need inspiration, just go to #oneblockwonder to see a wide variety of incredible quilts. Here are some reasons I love making these quilts (and some tips for making your own). 1. Every One Block Wonder quilt is totally unique. You start by taking a panel or other repeating design and carefully stacking six pieces on one another. There are several great techniques for effectively stacking discussed here . You then cut strips of 4-6" and use a 60 degree ruler to cut a series of triangles. I usually cut between 25-35 triangles for a throw sized quilt. Every triangle is different. And the way I lay out each triangle differs. That means that even if fifty people started with the same exact fabric, the resulting quilts would all look very different from one another.  2.  The end result of the One Block Wonder process is really impressive, but the sewing process is actuall
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Livin' the Scrappy Life - Four Ways to Use Small Scraps

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All quilters have it. The ever-growing bin of scraps that we swear we'll someday do something with. Maybe there's something in the psychology of creative types where we can't stand the idea of getting rid of something that might someday be useful in our projects. Or, maybe some of those fabrics have come to symbolize an important person or time in our lives. Or, maybe some fabrics are just so cute/pretty/unique that we have a hard time convincing ourselves to use them. No matter the reason, the stash of scraps just keeps growing and growing. After many years of quilting, I've come up several ways to use scraps. I organize my scraps according to the following four patterns. My system of organizing is not the only system, of course, but I hope reading about it will inspire others to tackle their own stash. I use different size scraps for different kinds of projects. So the first thing I do is sort scraps by size. For example, I sometimes use scraps in more traditional
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Cutting Fabric to See Differently

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On a recent trip to Pittsburgh I was finally able to visit the Andy Warhol Museum . As much as I am ambivalent about his iconic pop culture status (and his films), I have always appreciated the way his work makes us look at things differently. The repeating images and color distortions force the viewer to look again and notice things that our brains typically gloss over. I experimented with these techniques in my own artwork when I was a youngster. I'm now circling back to my Warhol-ian inspiration in some of my quilting. My first attempt was this Elvis Quilt (available on Etsy ). Along the bottom of the quilt you can see different neon blocks of dancing Elvises. The fabric was a series of these panels. The fabric feels a bit like Warhol in its raw format because of the neon colors and the sharp contrasts between the black and white clothes and the bright backgrounds. I used the One Block Wonder technique to go even farther in the Warhol direction. This means I took six pan
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