Rediscovery Brings Joy: An Old Quilt Block Becomes a New Quilt

Periodically I will clean out the stash, the started projects, even the scraps. Like Marie Kondo, sometimes you have to let go of the things that are no longer bringing you joy. But then you have to actually move them out of the house, not just the laundry room. The laundry room where they sit, untouched, only to fall off the shelf when the Covid chaos spills into the space. Then, when you bend down to clean up the mess you realize that this block looks quite cool and very cheery and it might be exactly what you need to work on RIGHT NOW. So you pick through the scraps bins and hunt through the stash, you play around with sketches and do some math, you hunt down the right kind of freezer paper, and then boom! A new full size quilt starts taking shape.

Generally when I make a quilt I get an idea and start sewing. I make a pile of blocks or components, play around with options, then decide what else I might need to make or start layout at the design wall. This project is a bit different. To match the seeming randomness and play with contrast of the original block I felt the need to lay it out, to design it in advance. It doesn’t mean it won’t change, but I felt I needed the guide. The circles aren’t on each half square triangle so sketching it out to get the right balance in layout gave me the math for cutting and piecing.

This cutting everything at once is a very different way to work than my norm. I can see why people do it though, because then you get to just sew, sew, sew! In my improv work I often tell students to front load as much of the decision making as possible so they can embrace the process of sewing, this is the same idea.

So here I am: everything got cut, all my half square triangles are sewn, and I am about half way though the circle prep and appliqué. My sewing opportunities come in fits and starts over the week, usually in the evenings when everyone has retreated to their corners of the house. I have a few projects I am actively working on at the moment, this is one of them. The colour combination is full of energy and that springtime glow. The sewing is not hard but it has great impact. This project is giving me such joy.

A student recently described her own Quilts Under Construction as Somedays and I just loved that sentiment. I’m glad that this particular Someday returned to me, just when I needed her.

Improv Square in a Square with Hand Dyed Fabrics

Hand dyed fabric plus an improv experiment equals a vibrant and unexpected quilt top.

The hand dyes were the rejects from my perimenopause project. Just not right for that project but still a stack of gorgeous fabric. to be honest, I simply expected them to be set aside to be used years from now - like most of my experiments. But then I had an idea, a wonderful, let’s see if this works at all idea.

Even though I’ve been quilting for a few decades and I can design patterns, with the math, without too much trouble, sometimes you just need to cut up the fabric and sew to see if the idea works. So I had an idea and needed to cut and sew to see if it was plausible. The stack of the hand dyes was there, just looking pretty. In my quilting journey I was taught that hand dyes were precious and to be savoured. Well, life these days begs for joy wherever we can get it so I dove into the pile. Also, now that I’ve been playing with the hand dyes I am comfortable making more if I want/need them. So I grabbed the stack, picked a few and got to playing.

And play I did! My experiment worked and I fell in love with the results. So I kept playing and playing and in a few hours I had the makings of a quilt top! The pretty stack of hand dyes is now a messy pile of scraps and I couldn’t be happier.

It all worked so well that I’ve decide to offer up this Improv Square in a Square as the next Quilters’ Playcation Playdate. We will hang out and I will demo a stress free way to make this Square in a Square block in any size. Sign up for the Friday or Saturday session, or both.

June 4 - 5 PM MST or June 5 - 10 AM MST

Remember, if you sign up for the Quilters’ Playcation Get The Scoop newsletter you get a discount code for your first event.

April Morning Make 2021

Blackout Poetry

Take a page from a book, literally, and cross out words so that the ones left are a poem. Made famous by Austin Kleon, blackout poetry is a unique way of creating. Part destruction, part seeking, part rebuilding, all creativity. What you remove is as important as what remains.

To begin I bought myself a hefty Sharpie and perused my bookshelf for a book I was willing to destroy in the process. I chose a self help book on anxiety. Not because I don’t need it anymore (hello third wave of Covid!) but because it was small in stature. My beginner brain assumed that less words on the page would make it easier to construct the poem.

That was a false assumption.

Such a specific topic and small pages meant that each page I ripped from the book was likely to contain one very narrow topic with a lot of repetition of words. This, I think, made it challenging to not only construct a poem I felt was valid and beautiful but also one that wasn’t necessarily about what was already on the page. Some days were better than others. Here are some of my favourites.

At first I felt my heart in my throat as I ripped pages from the book. The destruction! I really do love paper books. Then I started to see the beauty in the craggy edge where the page came away from its confines. I love the back side, where the Sharpie bleeds through. I love the searching for more beyond the content of the page. Finding the poem is almost like resuscitating the words so that they aren’t lost to the ether.

The Perimenopause Chronicle Quilt Begins

I come from a family with scary uterine history. My grandmother died of cervical cancer in her 30s. My mom had a hysterectomy shortly after giving birth to me. That history also means I have zero recollection of any conversations about menopause within my family. Really though, the world just doesn’t talk it; it isn’t just a thing with my family. More specifically, the world does not talk about perimenopause.

A few weeks ago I had a long conversation with one of my girlfriends about this. Is it squeamishness? Denial? the perpetual sweeping under the rug of anything to do with women’s health? Now that we are in the thick of perimenopause it reminds of when I was pregnant and I kept asking: why didn’t anyone tell me about this? In both cases it might be that people did tell me but I wasn’t looking for/listening to the information before I needed it. Or, it is the reasons listed above? Regardless, I am interested in it a lot now, for obvious reasons - being a 45 year old woman, namely.

So, on our last Virtual Trunk Show (Instagram Live, the second Thursday of each month) we had the theme of Change of Seasons and it gave me a wonderful idea: make a quilt to mark the perimenopause experience! I got the idea from the concept of temperature quilts/blankets. You pick a colour to correspond with the temperature of the day and make a block or knit/crochet a row to mark it. Only I would be marking my flow, moods, pain, and other stuff of my perimenopausal menstrual cycle.

Aided by a few conversations with friends and online about what exactly I should track and in consultation with the Monster and The Evil Genius I planned out the quilt. Fabric selection was a bit tough. I went back and forth between solids and prints until I concluded that neither felt right. A quiet Sunday at home led me to experiment with hand-dyed fabric (with Procion MX dyes). It took a few tries but I am happy with the palette for this quilt.

Each block will include a representation of my flow, or not flow, as well as my mood. I am also including a marker for pain and for what my teen referred to as Random Ass Shit like night sweats, bowel issues, breast tenderness, and bloating.

Here is the legend I am working with:

LEFT PILE
Orange = Random Ass Shit
Yellow = Pain (cramps and mittleschmerz mostly)
Pink/Peach = no flow
Pink Red = light flow
Red = medium flow
Purple Red = heavy flow

RIGHT PILE is for moods
Green = Happy
Turquoise = Content
Blue = Sad/Listless
Purple = Grumpy/Irritable/Annoyed
Black = Angry

My plan is to track things for 12 cycles. That adds up to more or less a year. Nothing is perfectly regular anymore so that is only a guess.

I know that this makes some feel uncomfortable. Oh well. We need more conversations on this topic and I am happy to open the door and make space for that. Yes, the quilt is a selfish reflection but it will serve as a larger conversation starter.

Expect the periodic post here and follow along on instagram with #perimenopausechroniclequilt.