Well after a gung ho start last week – and truly a desire to do this more often, and overthink it far less – I’ve had a hell of a time “showing up” here this week. There’s so much on my mind, but not much I feel capable of writing about publicly. (At least certainly not without significantly overthinking it.)
So this week (or for months, who knows) I’m changing tack: away from the personal and into the practical – practical as in, relating to practice.
In October of 2021 I was piecing together a stack of nine patch blocks. They shared some basic consistencies: an identical center square, in a precious red fabric that has become my singular focus. The “cross” or “plus” shape in the blocks were done in neutrals – mostly the color of undyed linen, though some in brighter whites and creams. The remaining four corners were pulled from a stack of 2” squares that were a combination of leftovers from Big Blue, three pieces of an oxblood silk velvet, and many pieces of a yellow, large-print floral pillowcase I’ve had with me since I moved out of my parents’ house in 2004 and for reasons I can’t explain, have a deeply nostalgic attachment to. I didn’t have a plan for how I was going to use these nine patches, but I wanted to make them, and so I did.
By January of ‘22 I was making another set of blocks, also with a set of shared rules, but these I was making with a definitive final outcome in mind. I had seen a sun and shadows log cabin quilt online, of unknown origin, that I had fallen in love with and had decided to simply, unapologetically copy. I gathered fabrics in the same palette and started sewing blocks. I put them up on the design wall in an orientation mimicking the piece I was taking direct inspiration from. And I was instantly dissatisfied.
In my quiltmaking I have historically always started from the final object. I have selected the blocks, mapped out their orientation and repeat, chosen the color palette, and determined the quilt’s final measurements. I have done the math and written out how many pieces I need of each size, and each color, and where they will go. I have always known where I was going, and then begun.
A reality of quiltmaking is that it takes a long time. At my absolute fastest, I have completed a quilt in maybe a little over 6 months. Most often, they take me a year or more – even the little ones. (There are a number of reasons for this: primarily that I work a fulltime day job, and my quilt practice is relegated to my few free hours in a week. Also, no matter my intentions, I cannot seem to work on only one thing at a time. There is, at any given moment, a minimum of three quilts in the works. Lastly, I hand quilt only, which can add weeks to that step of the process.) As a result of spending so much time with one idea, I have often found myself frustrated. I can – do – become bored by the idea I was enthralled with, long before the piece is finished. All that’s left, after all, is the execution.
With the red squares, I did not have a plan, and so playing with those blocks was obligatory. They went through four or five iterations; they were sewn and seam-ripped and sewn again. It evolved on paper, and on the wall; it grew, and grew some more.
Meanwhile the log cabin that started as a straightforward copy became, instead, a revelation. It’s been through many, many lives, and landed somewhere perhaps as far afield from the original plan as I could imagine, given that it still uses all the same blocks. That top is finished, now, finally, as of last Saturday, and I’m working on the back this week. And rather than bored by my full year with this project, I am ecstatic about it. It has its own language, its own playful demands. I am desperate to get my quilting needle sunk into it.
Every decision was made as I came to it. Not before. Everything was up for change, negotiation, reorientation, transmutation. Every piece moved, and moved again, until it sang and its neighbors sang, too. It feels as though this piece made itself.
This new way of working has been a breaking open. Now, I can – and do – begin before I know much of anything. I begin before I’m ready, as they say. I now choose a block I want to explore, and a palette I want to play with, and I simply,... begin.
This will seem anything but radical to some of you. But for a brain like mine, suffice it to say that working without a roadmap does not come naturally. And even though I feel freed by this newfound, improvisational play, there are challenges. There are days when I feel exhausted by the mental work, by my brain, by making decisions at every step, weighing options, not knowing what comes next. More of my time, now, is spent looking at the blocks on the wall; simply standing back and observing them. Moving them, looking again. Sometimes, sitting for long periods looking at them; “doing” nothing at all. I rip more seams, much more often. I imagine the length of time it takes me to complete a single piece will only get longer. On bad days, this work is draining. On good ones, it creates flow state.
I don’t think I’ll ever go back to the old way of working. I don’t ever want to plan a quilt again, from start to finish, every measurement and every choice pre-determined.
I don’t know, anymore, where I’m going. And I don’t want to.