My Life in 10 Objects: (# 9) Handmade Quilt
August 24, 2014
“Some of the most common ways in which a craft object attains meaning for a respondent are through information coded into the object by the maker; through the experience of discovering or acquiring the object; through a personal connection with the maker; and through provenance or projection. The object may acquire meaning at first contact — it may, as one passionate craft curator recently said to me, ‘touch your heart’ — or it may accrue meaning over years of use. However it happens, objects ultimately possess meaning to the extent that they affect or confirm the stories through which a respondent constructs his identity and orders his world. The more central those narratives are, the more meaning the object has.”
— Peter Korn, Why We Make Things and Why It Matters: The Education of a Craftsman
“Objects carry both history and desire.”
— Priscilla Long, The Writer’s Portable Mentor: A Guide to Art, Craft, and the Writing Life
“Anything a hand has touched is for some reason peculiarly charged with personality.”
— Richard Holmes, Footsteps: Adventures of a Romantic Biographer
Quilts represent my love of handmade things. I chose as my ninth “life object” this unfinished quilt that I am making. The top has been pieced for several years. I have yet to sew it to batting and backing and hand quilt it. I have a good track record of finishing projects like this, so I trust that someday this quilt will be ready to use and display. The unfinished aspect of this object reminds me that, for me, the creating and making are just as rewarding and pleasurable as owning the finished product.
“The profit of work is in the doing of it.”
— Richard Quinney, Once Again the Wonder
My mother sewed clothes, but she did not quilt. I don’t remember my grandmothers making quilts either. But my oldest sister Sandy, a home economics major, was and is passionate about quilting, and over the years she has passed on some skills to me — how to make my own binding, how to miter corners, how to applique using Wonder Under, how to cut and piece using Square-in-a-Square, etc. So my quilts connect me to my sister, which is very comforting.
Quilting appeals to my frugal nature. I like the idea of taking scraps and leftover fabric and sewing them together to make something useful and beautiful.
“The act of piecing a patchwork quilt is both utterly practical and powerfully symbolic. It’s an act of reclaiming, saving, mending, and unifying. The result, the quilt itself, solves a basic problem — the need for warmth — but it represents much more: the quiltmaker’s resourcefulness, wishes, and fierce opinions; an attempt to make something beautiful out of what otherwise might have been wasted; and the desire to make some kind of peace.”
— Katherine Bell, Quilting for Peace: Make the World a Better Place One Stitch at a Time
And I like the contemplative nature of quilting, its rhythms — repeating color blocks and stitches — and the lessons it teaches me about taking large projects a step at a time and, in time, accomplishing something quite wonderful.
“When we work with our hands and build something, we learn how to sequence our actions and how to organize our thoughts.”
— Robert Greene, Mastery
“I had often wondered if there was some neurological link between the gentle repetitive action of your arms wielding a broom or your hand stirring a pot and the ideas that filtered through to the front part of your mind; some fusion between physical action and creative ignition.”
— Debra Adelaide, The Household Guide to Dying
“It’s only when what we learn while we’re doing what seems to be basically routine that really counts; how to endure, how to produce, how to make life rich at its most mundane moments.”
— Joan Chittister
Several years ago, I created a private blog, “Handmade by Rosemary,” for the purpose of documenting the quilts and quilted things I have made over the course of two-plus decades. I kept it private because I made quite a few references to family in it. But I’ve just edited the blog to make it available for public viewing. There are 46 posts in all. (No recent posts because I haven’t been quilting lately!) If you want to view the entire series and see the quilts I’ve made, you can link to the first post above and then make sure you scroll all the way to the bottom to see the links (arrows) to the next post, and the next, and so on.
I’m at a point in my life where I am deciding whether it is time to get rid of my boxes of fabric scraps and maybe even make gifts of some of the quilts I’ve kept. I am not sure whether I will want to make more quilts in the years ahead or whether I will instead pursue other creative projects. You can see from my blog archive above that I have plenty of quilts to last my lifetime! Do I need more?
Day Trip to Tacoma for Eric Carle Exhibit
June 1, 2013
“We have eyes, and we’re looking at stuff all the time, all day long. And I just think that whatever our eyes touch should be beautiful, tasteful, appealing, and important.”
— Eric Carle
In keeping with my resolution to drive less, my niece, a friend, and I made a day trip to Tacoma by bus to see the Eric Carle exhibit at the Tacoma Art Museum. Carle is a well-known, award-winning children’s book illustrator, so I have been familiar with his work for a long time. I enjoyed reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See to my daughter when she was very young.
I was so enamoured of Carle’s illustrations that I adapted some of them into applique for a handmade quilt. Carle’s stylized, simple shapes were perfect for copying as appliqued patterns.
The Tacoma exhibit, “Beyond Books: The Independent Art of Eric Carle,” presented another side of Carle as artist. It included some of his wood block prints, framed paintings, amazing works on painted Tyvek, and even handmade greeting cards for (lucky) friends. Now I am even more impressed by Carle’s talents.
The exhibit runs through July 7, 2013.
Another Quilt Exhibit: Bold Expressions at the Bellevue Art Museum
September 11, 2012
I finally went to see the quilt exhibit — Bold Expressions: African-American Quilts from the Collection of Corrine Riley — at the Bellevue Arts Museum (a city across Lake Washington from Seattle). This is an amazing collection, gathered over three decades. Most of the quilts were made between 1910 and the 1970s by women from Alabama, Texas, and other southern states. I thought that the bold, asymmetrical and improvised designs looked quite contemporary. This exhibit is definitely worth a trip before it closes on October 7th.

I was impressed by the industry of this quilt maker, who sewed thousands of tiny scraps into a stunning quilt.

These quilt blocks, made by Corrine Riley from old, collected fabrics, were suitable for framing and for sale in the museum gift shop for $190 each.
You can read more about this exhibit in this Seattle Times article.
Patching Blue Jeans
March 2, 2012
Time to patch another pair of blue jeans. I had worn a hole in the knee, but denim is such a durable cloth that the rest of the jeans were still serviceable. The colorful, log-cabin quilted patch will give new life to these jeans. This patching project was quick, pleasurable, and satisfying.
My Latest Quilting Project
February 3, 2012
“Any day spent sewing is a good day.”
— Author unknown
“Our lives are like quilts — bits and pieces, joy and sorrow, stitched with love.”
— Author unknown
I finished piecing and hand-quilting another project, two placemats. The pattern is called “Twilight Village” and I found it in The Thimbleberries Book of Quilts by Lynette Jensen. The placemats will be a gift for a young couple as they start their married life together.
Work is Love Made Visible
January 25, 2012
“Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love
But only with distaste, it is better
That you should leave your work and
Sit at the gate of the temple and take
Alms from those who work with joy.”
— Anonymous
I like the notion of work as a sign of love — the meals I cook for my family, housecleaning, yardwork . . . Whenever I do hand-quilting, I feel that I am stitching with love and that those feelings will bind me to the recipient of my labors.
I spent last week on a new quilting project — a table runner adapting the Zipper pattern I found in The Modern Quilt Workshop by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr. The cold, snowy days made perfect weather for relaxing inside with a sewing project. This small handmade item is destined for a wedding gift.
“To Collect is to Write a Life”
November 7, 2011
I like the following quotes from William Davies King, Collections of Nothing:
“To collect is to write a life.”
“For all of us, the pursuit has its pleasures, and some sensation of fulfillment comes in the rhythm of acquisition.”
“Collecting is a way of linking past, present, and future. Objects from the past get collected in the present to preserve them for the future. Collecting processes presence . . .”
I always enjoy visiting my sister’s house. She is an avid gardener, an excellent cook and baker, and a professional quilter. Her house is full of her collections of things that reflect her varied interests. You’ll see what I mean when you look at these photos of her home:
Purples and Greens
October 10, 2011
I am seeing a lot of purple-green color combinations in nature right now. I think it is a particularly pleasing juxtaposition.
Purple and green is also a favorite color scheme in quilts. Here is one I made several years ago:
In celebration of our nation’s birthday, this Fourth of July, I will share with you my collection of handmade quilted items in red, white, and blue. I’ve made these over the years from fabric scraps. They’ve become treasured holiday keepsakes.