Congratulations to Alex Anderson, Ricky Tims and Jan Magee!!! Oh wait a moment – there are a lot of other people to congratulate as well from all of the authors and quilters to the publisher and photographers and so many people who have contributed to this magazine! I’m privileged to have written for The Quilt Life twice and am planning on submitting something again soon for the “Be Our Guest” feature.
As I write this blog I’m sitting in the waiting room of the dealership waiting. Waiting for the car rental place to open so I can head off to another part of my quilt life – Hartsdale Fabrics where I work part time. This is part of my quilt life, one that at this moment did not “feel” very quilterly however, here I am with blog fodder. This is part of my quilt life. As the name of the magazine offers The Quilt Life is about who we are as quilters, not solely about the quilts we make. The things we do inform our quilts and our quilts reveal part of who we are.
Over the last few months I’ve been thinking about who I am as a quilter, my quilt life, teaching and so much. One of the thoughts that perhaps I’ll submit as an article to The Quilt Life, has been that quilters wear their hearts in public in the quilts we make to give, display and even the ones that never make the full light of day. Maybe I’ll just flesh this out here a bit.
I myself have been known to make snarky comments and pick apart other quilters work in public. (hanging my head in a deep acknowledgement of quilterly shame) I’m not particularly proud of this. The change was coming long before I ever started teaching as I often began to wonder if the quilter was around and if they could hear what I say, how would they feel? Did it lift them up? Did it encourage them? If the answer was negative in any way or overly critical I keep my big mouth shut. As a teacher I decided that encouraging quilters, particularly new to the process quilters is essential.
Of course my phrases like, “oh yeah you should have this technique down pat ’cause you’ve been quilting for, oh 3 hours” are part of my repertoire. I have a fairly efficient filter in place however sometimes sarcasm is particularly effective in helping the quilter to stop, breathe, blink and move on.
Quilting is not an easy task or thing to learn. It’s a process. A process that takes time to learn, to figure out who you are as a quilt maker. Just like sitting in this waiting room waiting for the mechanics and techs to figure out what is wrong with my car. They’re going to have to go through a series of diagnostic testing to eliminate a list of potential problems.
So today this is part of my quilt life, waiting for the car and blogging.
Happy Birthday to The Quilt Life!!! Here’s to many more years down the road.
