Quilts can tell you so much about the people who made them and when. I created my first quilt square for some extra credit in geometry during my freshman year of high school and I had now idea how much that would impact my life. The project was to create an art piece using tessellations and while I’m not sure how I came to do a quilt block, this laid the ground work for my love of quilting.
Que a year later when Winona Ryder, my idol at the time, introduced me to How to Make An American Quilt. When I watched that movie, I learned how much history and how many personal stories a quilt can hold. A few years later I went off to the Savannah College of Art & Design. I had no clear idea of what I wanted to BE, but I knew that I was a creative soul. Two years of studying Everything was interesting, but I still hadn’t found my place. By chance, I took an Intro To Fibers class where I vividly remember on the first day a light coming on: “THIS IS IT”! My parents were just happy that I had finally picked something (anything to stop me from buying Intro class supplies-$$$). Fiber art combined my love of fine art and hand crafted, coming together with fine art quilts. I loved learning the traditional techniques before I started winging it without a “recipe”.
As I’m writing this, I realize that the quilting process is like a puzzle, and I love puzzles. I start with an image or idea. Next, I fit shapes and color to convey that feeling into a quilt. Each step in the process from hand painting the fabric to layering the batting, and even binding, brings me joy.
Look at a quilt. See what fabric the quilter chose, whether it’s old clothes or something hand painted. The patterns and color choices can create images and convey feelings. Is it machine or hand-stitched (which I do not do and admire anyone who can do it evenly)? You never know when and where a seed that is planted will grow. A high school geometry class laid the ground work for a love of quilting that has carried me through till today.
