As most of you know, I am what in the quilting world is known as a fabricholic. I am not alone in this addiction. We exist all over the globe, from the woman who sits on a dirt floor in India, piecing together tens of thousands of tiny scraps of fabric to make a beautiful and colorful quilt which she will sell for the equivalent of a couple of dollars and which will be resold for thousands or end up in a quilt museum somewhere, to those who have a $75,000 longarm programmable quilter and an embroidery machine that you program and walk away from, letting the machine do all the work.
We all, no matter how good or bad a craftsperson we are, no matter if we quilt by hand or machine, whether we are male or female, old or young, we all share a love of textiles that is an addiction just like alcohol or cocaine. How does this happen? The beauty of fabrics is like a balm to us on one hand and appeals to our creative urges on the other. I quilt in order to justify buying fabric. Truly. I love quilt design but in all truthfulness am not crazy about the actual sewing and quilting unless I am just trying to see if something can be done. I love vibrant colors, see art in each piece of fabric, and tend toward sort of wildly colored quilts although I can do traditional quilts too.
While going through a little book of memoirs I have been putting together for my grandchildren, in case they ever get curious about what their GG's life was like, I came across a couple of papers on quilts I wrote for a quilt project called a round robin that I did a few years back. I thought I might share these with you so perhaps you can understand how a quilter, at least this quilter, thinks. The second has a lot of quilting terms in it and you may understand some of it and some you may not understand. So any way, here goes:
While going through a little book of memoirs I have been putting together for my grandchildren, in case they ever get curious about what their GG's life was like, I came across a couple of papers on quilts I wrote for a quilt project called a round robin that I did a few years back. I thought I might share these with you so perhaps you can understand how a quilter, at least this quilter, thinks. The second has a lot of quilting terms in it and you may understand some of it and some you may not understand. So any way, here goes:
Reflections of a Fabricholic
by VG
My life is like a quilt
Some of my points don't match
And I am near to coming apart at a few of my seams.
While some of my scraps are dull,
There are some that are joyously wild and colorful.
I am not too evenly stitched but
each piece of cloth is held together
by the strong threads of love and loyalty
for and from family, friends and country.
Every experience, those remembered and
Those long forgotten is a thread that has been
woven into the fabric of my being.
I am worn thin in some places, and too
lumpy in others, but I still can wrap
myself around my loved ones and help
keep them warm and comforted.
I am a quilt to be used.
To be sat on, tossed in the washer and dryer, and enjoyed.
No mere art quilt am I. I want to be a warm memory
of those I touch long after each of my threads has worn away.
My Thoughts on Quilters
by VG
- Quilters have been around the block a few times.
- Quilters keep UFOs in their homes.
- Quilters are on the square.
- Quilters put it together piece by piece.
- Quilters don't need the INS; they take care of their own borders.
- Quilters thoughts are sometimes biased.
- Quilters fabricate their world.
- Quilters have batts in their belfries.
- Quilters love Shakespearean plays; their favorite is "Measure for Measure".
- Quilters are like clothes horses; they are always buying new threads.
- Quilters have been known to cut corners.
- Quilters have wide backs.
- Quilters are artists by design.
- Quilters should belong to the National Audubon Society; they love Flying Geese and they are on the lookout for round robins.
- Crabby quilters sometimes make fussy cuts.
- Quilters sometimes go against the grain.
- Quilters are on the cutting edge---by a scant quarter inch, of course.
- Some quilters are like orangutans---they have longarms.
- Quilters love the company of men---Michael, Robert, Alexander and Kaffe.
- Quilters seam on the straight and narrow, but sometimes they zigzag.
- Quilters are a scrappy lot.
- Quilters know that cotton is a drug and they are all addicts.
