Announcing Quilters' Playcation

More than a few years in the making with a delay because of Covid - those kids took my computer for school! - but I am thrilled to finally announce my new adventure: Quilters’ Playcation!

I wanted to create an experience, and opportunity for all quilters to give themselves the time to play; to give themselves the time, period. We make sure the kids or grandkids play, we get outside for a walk or exercise, we fit in our quilting wherever we can, but so rarely do we give ourselves the chance to actually play.

With travel still currently on hold and maybe you are bored with your family staycation, now is the perfect time for a playcation!

Playcation is all about exploring your creativity and having fun. Through Playdates - live Zoom events with a demo and time to hang out with fellow quilters/future friends - and Parties - stand alone workshops you can take on your own time, any time - I will share techniques, tips, and quilt opportunities. We’re here to play, not necessarily make a quilt. I am a firm believer that you don’t have to necessarily be making something when you sew and Playcation is proof of that. Just come for a good time.

The first event is already scheduled too!

March 5 5PM MST

Playdate: Crumb Blocks.

Register here! Start Playing!

Right now I am in the process of filming the first Parties. And more Playdates will be announced soon. The best way to stay informed is to sign up for the Quilters’ Playcation Newsletter. Just head over to the website and enter your email under Get The Scoop! at the bottom of any page. And everyone who signs up to the newsletter will get a discount code for their first event. Use it now or hang on to it for later.

As this is a brand new adventure I welcome any feedback or suggestions. I want to build this to be something you all want and can use. Think of me as your travel agent on your own Playcation!

Social Justice Sewing Academy Anti-Racist Guidebook

Last fall, after a summer of Black Lives Matter protests, the Social Justice Sewing Academy set out to do some different kind of work. This, on top of the amazing lessons, memorials, and community work they already do. They’ve just published a guidebook for the sewers of the world, An Anti-Racist Guidebook.

What is Anti-Racism?

I came to the term through Ibram X. Kendi and his book How to Be an Anti Racist. Essentially, it is about doing more than saying you believe all races are equal. Saying you don’t see colour isn’t the answer. It is about examining the systemic racism that we all participate in one way or another, then actively working to dismantle it.

When the call for volunteers came out I signed up immediately. As a quilter who works almost exclusively in cotton, as a white woman who only learned more than pop culture civil rights history in the last 10 years, as a human, I wanted to do some of the anti-racism work for myself and our community. Ever since my trip to Alabama and seeing cotton fields for the first time I’ve wanted to dive deeper into its production. Hand in hand with that is the deep dive into the role cotton has played in systemic racism.

My essay in the Anti-Racist Guidebook is the result. I looked into the ties between slavery and cotton production, which most of us know about. But it also examines the growth of the Industrial Revolution and capitalism as tied to cotton production, and therefore slavery. It also examines current cotton production, including how those links aren’t really gone.

The process was eye-opening for sure. I hope it is for you. It has me hanging on to every scrap of my cotton, not wanting to waste a bit of effort that went into making it. I won’t lie, it also gives me mixed feelings about using cotton at all. This discomfort is good, its going to force me to dig deeper. The next step is to talk to the fabric companies that make our medium of choice and ask them about their current supply chain. The more we all know, the better.

I highly recommend checking out the entire Anti-Racist Guidebook. There are some incredible pieces on everything from code-meshing to political quilts, from housing to resiliency. Each essay is written by a volunteer. They place themselves in the work, to show the work rather than centre their story. Each essay also includes recommendations for self reflection by the reader, to do their own work on the topic.

For my part one of my resources was this book: Empire of Cotton by Sven Beckert. I pulled from multiple sections but now I am sitting down for a good read. It is fascinating and disheartening at the same time, illuminating and depressing. But we can’t walk away from the thick, the ugly, the hard just because they are so. People live this still and it is up to all of us to move forward for all.

And for those of you who might want to tell me to keep politics out of quilting, I hope you read this guidebook. If anything, to know that cotton, our material of choice is inherently political.

Quarantine Quilt 2

Quarantine Quilt 2

45’’ x 54’’

We’re in a Polar Vortex right now. Or, as I call it, proper winter. Perfect time to be finishing a quilt AND to make your children hold it up for you to take a picture before the sun sets.

This is the scrap quilt from Quarantine Quilt 1. In the midst of Morning Make in April 2020 I realized I had a stack of cut triangles and that begged to be used right then and there instead of being relegated to a scrap bin. My one block a day that month became two blocks a day when I started turning those triangles into Sawtooth Stars.

Two quilts for the price of one month.

This quilt finished up as a sweet little baby quilt. It is pretty and cute and soft and exactly what you want a baby quilt to be. And that was before I quilted it! Simple loops in a variegated 50W from Wonderfil give it the perfect texture for a piece that will hopefully get well loved one day.

While I usually go for a higher contrast binding the whisper of the low volume fabrics called for something quieter. I picked the peach crosshatch from Carolyn Friedlander this time. It was a total coincidence that I also had used some of her fabric on the backing. What can I say? She makes good stuff!

Now that this quilt is done and the weather is still frightfully cold I need to get another quilt done so I can sit and bind it while watching the world pass by. Mostly I will dream about babies that family and even friends could have so that I can bestow this sweet quilt upon them. I promise that by the time I give it away it will have a better name.

Morning Make January 2021

You know how people often start January with a Word of The Year? I admit that I’ve done it a few times. I also admit that I have forgotten my chosen word by March, every single year.

For Morning Make, then, I decided to think up a month’s worth or words to hammer home. All things I think are important for me to keep in mind. By drawing one our each day, doodling, really, I could spend some time to ruminate on the word for myself.

So that didn't really happen. I was doing these in the dark mornings on January in minimal light in the hopes the kids would stay asleep. I spent more time worried about font and lines and kerning and being unique each day than I did thinking about the word itself. Sigh.

It turns out that my love of fonts and graphic design does not extend to the doing of it. I’ve read some stuff and enjoy looking at books and articles about font design and logos and all that stuff. While I never expected this to be easy nor for me to be any good at it as a beginner, I did not expect to dislike it. This was a slog, if I am being truly honest. I did not look forward to it each morning, I even felt stressed.

This is not the point of Morning Make!

Or so I thought. Truly, the point is to commit to the daily practice. The point is to experiment and play with something. Unless you try, you don’t know whether you will like it or not. The point is to show up and both challenge your creative juices and embrace the little tangents it wants to take you to.

It’s okay not to like it. I tell my quilt students that all the time. You don’t have to like what you made or event eh technique, but appreciate it all for the commitment to yourself and your play. This, this is the point of Morning Make.

Since graphic design isn’t going to be a career choice for me (now I know!) it’s back to sewing for February.