I buy most of them second-hand. They are a great source of inspiration and I return to them again and again. Many of their titles are similar, and so I struggle to remember which ones I own.
What’s interesting is that many weren’t written for quilters. Each book’s aim is slightly different, but only a few feature patterns for making the quilts inside.
About a week ago, on Jan. 28, Mary Fons posted a YouTube video called “Stop Cutting Up Quilts to Make Clothes.” A graphic image (below) was used on Instagram to publicize the video.
And the graphic did its job. Not only did it entice me to watch the video, almost 15 thousand other people watched it too. Many of those watched after this became news in the quilt world, but still. For the sake of comparison, Mary has about 8000 subscribers and her videos mostly garner a few hundred views each on YouTube/Twitch.
Mary Fons is the 40-something daughter of quilting superstar Marianne Fons. Marianne and her business partner Liz Porter created an empire of sorts selling magazines, books, videos and tools for quilters, among other things. They became widely known before selling the business.
Mary Fons has long been inside the quilt industry. She hosted Fons & Porter’s Love of Quilting television program on PBS, she founded a magazine for beginning modern-leaning sewists called Quilty, she wrote a long-running column for Quilts Inc. (the organization that gives us International Quilt Festival), she more recently served as editor-in-chief of Quiltfolk magazine and she’s an active live-streamer on various quilt topics via YouTube and Twitch. (There’s much, much more to her quilting resume.)
And that’s an understatement. There were quilters at every turn who did not like her and they weren’t shy about saying so. They made awful comments and personal attacks. Mary called them out and forged ahead.
There was a time when I wondered if it wasn’t convenient to ride (into the industry) on her mother’s coattails, but then I heard Mary speak at QuiltCon and she was eloquent. She is smart, she generally does her homework and she isn’t afraid to take a stand.
Part of her background is in theatre and so she is…theatrical. She’s very expressive and it seems like many of her detractors have taken issue with that. But it’s how she communicates—her way of being in the world.
Mary spoke passionately about famous designers like Emily Bode and regular quilters like you and me cutting up quilts to make garments. She strongly opposes the practice and she tells us why.
…wrong, privileged, dramatic, clickbait, condescending, gatekeeping girl boss and more. So much more. The general idea among these folks is “how dare you tell me how I can make art.”
Mary’s YouTube video: What started this storm
Lots of opinions via Reddit: Mostly negative comments
Passion for patchwork: make-do-and-mend hits the Paris catwalk: More about Emily Bode and her fashion designs made from old quilts
Bode’s homepage for lots more quilted clothing: See the weird and wonderful here
I can’t wait to hear what you think.
Quilt on,
My latest design for Fons & Porter’s Quick + Easy Quilts was inspired by two things.
The first was a vintage quilt I saw on the auction site eBay. Tiny red triangles sparkled against dusty old tones, and I was smitten.
The second inspiration was my father.
His name was John Volk and he was a farmer here in Nebraska. He loved agriculture and he loved us. I could write a book about him, but for now let me tell you about his everyday attire.
My dad wore denim overalls and a blue chambray shirt. And he carried a bandana-patterned handkerchief in either bright red or navy blue. For all or our lives, day in and day out, we could count on this one thing. (Unless it was Sunday, but that’s another post.)
He died in 2011 at age 91, but I still have a pair of his overalls. I’d like to make something from them, but in the meantime, there is this quilt:
All of the blues and creams are from my stash, and they echo the colors I associate with Dad. And sewing from what I already have? That’s significant too, because my father was a child of the Depression. Born in 1920, he lived through some very lean times in the ’30s.
There’s a story about one of my brothers chiding him for saving what seemed like an excess of scrap wood behind a small building on the farm. And Dad went on a little rant about that, declaring that until we had lived through a time when you could not get the things you needed, we’d better zip it.
So I like to think that he’d approve of me pulling fabrics from my stash to make a quilt in his honor.
I made the quilt for a king-size bed, which is why it has a wider border at the bottom. Another row of blocks would have made it too large; this border brought it to just the size I wanted.
This issue is on newsstands now so I hope you’ll pick it up when you see it. I love the cover quilt by Nancy Mahoney called Weaving Stars. There’s an easy veteran-appropriate Quilt of Valor pattern, a nice baby quilt, a fabulous modern design called Tweens by Dodi Poulsen and much more.
If you prefer a digital issue (save the trees!) you can order it from Quilting Daily for $7.99. I’m always amazed by what a great value a magazine is. When a pattern costs at least $10 or $12, less than eight for a dozen projects is a steal.
Thank you for letting me think happy thoughts about my father today. He was a keeper.
Quilt on,
One of the things I love about EQ8 quilt design software is that it can help me “scratch an itch.” When there’s a quilt I adore but know that I probably won’t ever make, I can create it virtually with EQ!
Every month on the EQ blog, there’s a feature called Block Spotlight. People are encouraged to design something with a featured block. EQ editors give a few ideas to prime your creative pump and it’s like calisthenics for your creative muscles.
I was happy to see that the August Block Spotlight is Prickly Pickle. It’s from the block library within the software—one of thousands you can use to design your own quilts—and I can’t wait to see how people use it.
A bell went off in my head when I saw the block, because just that week I had seen the photo above and fell in love with the colors in that quilt. The old, softly muted reds, blues, pinks and creams against the faded gold are heavenly.
There is one problem: I don’t know where I grabbed these photos so I can’t properly credit the owner. If they are yours, please let me know.
Since I love that vintage quilt so much, I colored my Block Spotlight in a similar way. And that was really scratching an itch for me!
I adore this quilt but I won’t ever make it. So coloring it and making as many virtual blocks as I wanted to were a wonderful substitute.
When I play with a quilt design, I use the solid colors available in EQ instead of the fabric swatches.
At this point in the process, I’m not thinking about fabric as much as I’m considering the big picture of the color recipe and the values (lightness or darkness).
I will say that I do know my fabric stash well enough to be certain that I could find these in it. I would have to buy the gold fabric, but with virtual, that’s not a problem! See the advantages?? 😊
I love to color things randomly. There are some parameters (a set of colors) but they are loose and the whole thing can flow freely.
It was as much fun to color it in EQ8 as it would be to sew it—maybe more!
And this is what I love about scrappy vintage quilts! They are the most carefree, exuberant and entertaining quilts around.
What I wouldn’t give for the time to sew this! Would you ever get tired of looking at it? Seems there would always be something new to discover! And to demonstrate that the gold is the bomb, look at what happens with a neutral background.
I think it dies. The colors and randomness are still interesting but they don’t hold up the way the gold background does. But you know what?
And that’s the beauty of the quilting world: You are in charge of what you like and what you don’t. If you like it, you can do it!
I wondered about an indigo background. With EQ it’s just a click or two to check it out.
I tried several different blues because blue is funny and I think it’s a hard color in a scrap quilt. (Red is the easiest!)
I saw a wonderful quilt by Sandi Griepenstroh at guild last week in navy and lime green. So I tried something in those colors. (This is why you should be snapping photos during your guild meetings! Color inspiration from here to kingdom come!) Then I had another idea.
Above, the petal shapes are mostly filled in with color. I wondered what would happen if…
I made the insides of the petal shapes the same color as the background. Voila! Totally different look. Now it’s as if you’re peering through curved window panes.
And because I got so excited about this block, before I left it behind, I softened the colors into something I might actually sew, with a more reasonable number of blocks.
Because you never know.
To get started with EQ8 from The Electric Quilt Company, use code EQ8STASHBANDIT for 20% off everything on electricquilt.com. That’s a nice savings! Ends Sept. 30, 2020.
To see what others designed with the same block, visit Block Spotlight! And if you’re an EQ user, jump right in to the fun and design something yourself. If you’re not a user but you want to be, use the code above to get started.
I went to Des Moines this week to see my great-nieces and great-nephew show their pigs on the Iowa State Fairgrounds.
My family’s roots in the livestock industry go way back, and these kids are the fifth generation that I know of to show competitively.
I haven’t blogged in a while but here’s what has been happening in my personal life and in the studio!
I went to Hong Kong for two weeks to visit my daughter, her husband and their two little boys.
I had a great time and enjoyed the little guys tremendously. Their parents are wonderful, too, but you know: grandchildren.
Today’s feature is a guest post by my friend Donna di Natale. She’s a quilter and author with Nebraska roots. After retiring from the medical field, Donna was an editor for Kansas City Star Quilts. She lives in Lenexa, Kansas and enjoys history, antiques and vintage quilt treasures.
Read Part 1 if you need to.
On a recent trip to Hamilton, Missouri, I brought home a red and white signature bear. Wanting to learn more about the bear, it was time to do a little research.
I enjoy research, especially genealogy. As with all research, you start with what you know. In this case, I knew the bear was purchased in Hamilton, Caldwell County, Missouri, and that is where I began.
Today’s feature is a guest post by my friend Donna di Natale. She’s a quilter and author with Nebraska roots. After retiring from the medical field, Donna was an editor for Kansas City Star Quilts. She lives in Lenexa, Kansas and enjoys history, antiques and vintage quilt treasures.
During a recent visit to Hamilton, Missouri (mecca for quilters), I stopped at a small antique shop called Junke and Disorderly. With a name like that, the shop had to contain hidden treasures, right?
Upon entering the shop one has the impression that it might have been a home. There are small rooms leading to other small and even smaller rooms. This seems odd because from the outside it looks like any other turn of the century brick storefront. Perhaps the front room was a shop and the back was living quarters. But that’s a story for another time.
Junke and Disorderly in Hamilton, Missouri
One of the sweetest quilts I ever came across is a Sunbonnet Sue baby quilt from the 30’s or 40’s. I’m not usually a fan of silly Sue, but this one was so charming that I couldn’t leave it behind.
I love the rectangular blocks. They’re more interesting than square blocks. And notice that Sue has a friend. Or maybe she’s a twin. There are two Sues on each block. I love the solid colors used for each little girl. They’re so cheerful.
Over the weekend I saw a lot of machine quilting that challenged me to improve my skills and start working on the tops I have finished. You know how that is? You love to piece them, but your machine quilting is less than perfect and it’s hard to figure out what to quilt on them. So the pile of unquilted tops grows.
Here are some of the quilts that inspired me. They were done by Handi Quilter educators on longarm machines, which I do not have, but that doesn’t matter. It’s entirely possible to quilt beautifully on a home sewing machine. My quilting doesn’t have to be of show quality to be just fine.