Covid Evolution
Covid has now turned me into the purple haired woman who quilts. Yes it’s true, I may have lost my mind and all I think about is quilting. Which quilt will I make next? How will I connect these two pieces of fabric with a quarter inch seam allowance? How do I create a curved shape? Which colors should I use for this particular design? What in the heck do I do with all of these quilts?
I am currently on quilt number nine. Number nine! It started innocently enough. Apparently, there are these people online who are “influencers.” This is a job. They do things or make things that make people want to be like them and if they get enough followers on social media, then companies pay them to hawk their wares and voila, the influencer gets lots of money. This is so far outside of my brain’s wheelhouse. Can you major in influencing in college now? Anyway, I googled “how to make a quilt” and a page came up for a sewing influencer. Of course, I didn’t know this. I just thought she was a crafty girl. I didn’t realize she was some sort of empire. She had some videos on making a beginner quilt and I followed (most of) the directions and out came a quilt. That was it, I was now going to be a quilter.
My idea of quilting is a group of little old ladies in their sewing circle having their “Florida conversations” (thank you Paula for that perfect phrase) about their list of surgeries on the horizon and achy joints. If I was going to be a quilter, there had to be a way to make this at least a somewhat cool and hip endeavor (the fact that I use the words cool and hip probably means I am one of those little old ladies). I had a hair appointment and decided to ask for purple hair. I’ve never dyed my hair anything other than blonde or brunette, but this was a quilting emergency. It was not as dramatic as I’d hoped and it ended up washing out pretty quickly, but it was at least a little bit cool (ok I’ll stop saying hip).
Now you can’t continue to make the same type of quilt over and over so I really needed to up my game. I have also accepted that I am an impatient quilter so I am not going to hand sew the binding. I found additional sewing influencers who showed me ways to machine sew the binding. It is not as pretty, but like I said, I’m impatient. I also wanted larger quilts. Not bedspreads necessarily, but big enough to be a good sized throw. The second quilt was a little bit different.
I found some patterns online and ways to make triangles that could be arranged to make different shapes. I was really proud of the third quilt. It was a chevron design made from about a million of these triangles. I ended up giving it away as a baby quilt to a couple who had a baby in December.
Next, I made a quilt that was supposed to resemble flying birds. That one was for my Mom, who is a birder. My poor Mom probably gets sick of every gift being related to birds. But the quilt was cute.
Quilts five, six, and seven evolved from googling “manly quilts.” I didn’t necessarily mean for men only, but there had to be quilts that weren’t for babies and weren’t all brightly colored. I found the best quilting store online and they had all of these neutral colored “charm packs” made of flannel. Charm packs are stacks of 42 5-inch squares. There is some interesting terminology in quilting. Layer cakes are 10-inch squares. Jelly rolls are 2.5-inch strips of fabric. There are also mini charm packs, fat quarters, honey buns, and I’m sure several I’ve not heard of. Anyway, I bought some flannel fabrics and make three quilts that weren’t so girly. I gave two to friends and one to my Dad.
I took a break for Christmas to make flannel pajamas for Bill and me to wear on Christmas Day. That was a challenge, but they were the cutest pj’s ever. I ended up with a lot of leftover flannel so I had an idea to make Bill a flannel quilt that was sort of plaid looking. Realizing I would not have enough fabric, I added a section with an argyle pattern. Oh my gosh I am seriously a bad ass quilt designer. It was not the easiest quilt. Flannel tends to stretch so this was not a quilt that anyone should look at too closely. It ended up very cute though and super manly.
I bought a couple of books on modern quilting, which have me excited about future quilts. I am not someone who particularly likes some antique-y kind of stuff. Give me retro or modern any day, but you can keep the doilies and mothball stench. The books have great ideas for things I never even thought of. My current quilt is of the modern variety. I can’t share details yet because it will be a gift for someone. Fingers crossed it turns out the way I’m hoping it will.
I really am hoping covid will not last much longer. It’s been a stressful year and my nerves are just shot to shit. Sewing helps a bit. Some days I just find myself sewing “furiously” so I don’t think about the world’s problems. I am grateful for learning something new to express myself creatively. Who knows, maybe I’ll become an influencer and make millions. Nah…I’m not hip enough for that.
