I'm a Quilting Fan. I think.

Yes, I've been a wee bit quiet lately. Some of that is due to the fact that everybody in the Quilt Industry is currently in Houston for Quilt Market and I am not. This is because I am basically no longer a part of the Quilt Industry, at least not the part that goes to Quilt Market. And this is actually a good thing. I had gone to the last Quilt Market in Pittsburgh hoping to become more comfortable with the whole process (trade shows are no place for introverts) so that I could eventually go and truly market my own stuff (instead of being too embarrassed to do so), but instead it turned out to be a clusterfuck of mega-proportions, and I left feeling unsure of my future in the industry as well as unsure of even my love for quilting. Usually I  come home from Market at least somewhat excited about new fabrics and patterns. But this time? Meh. I really started to wonder if my love affair with quilting was over.

I had been thinking that my articles were starting to get that "phoned-in" feel, and I really wanted to work as an independent artist and not as anyone's employee, so I bid a final farewell to Generation Q magazine and wrote one last column for the September/October issue. I spent the summer mostly hanging out with my kids, but I also started writing a book. I wanted to remember what I love about quilting, and I wanted to impart that love to other people. I won't say much more about the book than that, but I have managed to write over 15,000 words so far. That's not a Stephen King pace by any stretch, but it's not nothing either.

I've also been planning a novel, one I have mentioned in the past. I still want to write this, though it scares me and I am still working up the courage to start. I plan for this to merely be a "practice" novel, one to help me get the feel of the process and the structure, but I do have a dream to create quilt-related fiction that isn't all treacle and sunshine and heartwarming tales of friendship and family. No, I think there needs to be hot guys, evil bitch quilters who steal pattern ideas and take the good seats at guild meetings EVERY SINGLE TIME, and it should be GODDAMN FUNNY.

But I still wasn't inspired to actually, you know, quilt. I rearranged my fabrics several times, and even acquired some more, but I still felt no call to actually do anything with any of it. I've been collecting Tula Pink fabrics for a while, and got some more over the summer, and one day while going through some drawers I came across a "fan" ruler that can be used to make wedge shapes, as for Dresden plate quilts. The ruler came with a "Fan" pattern and I immediately thought of making an "I'm A Tula Fan" quilt. I pulled out all of my TP fat quarters and started at them for several days.

Then I selected a group based on the color wheel and cut my wedges. I had no plan. I was making shit up as I went along.

I sewed the tips into points and then tried to decide among several configurations. Just a mix to make it all scrappy? Full Dresdens? Half-dresden fans? Quarter-dresdens? Color wheel? Then, once I got that all worked out, I had to figure out the centers. I had already decided to use two blender prints from Tula's Fox Field line as the background, but I wanted something different for the centers. I played around with circles and squares and hexagons until I finally came up with a hexie/circle combo that I really liked.

I spent the next few weeks hand sewing like a maniac. All those dresdens could have been machine stitched down, but I just loooove the look of hand appliqué and I didn't mind the time it would take to do it. I mean, where the hell am I going, right? But it didn't really take as long as I thought and in a couple weeks (and after watching Outlander A LOT) I got them all stitched down. I finished sewing all the individual blocks together yesterday, and it now hangs on my design wall, waiting for backing and quilting and binding and just looking like a badass motherfucker.

I am so proud of this.

Am I desperately in love with quilting again? I don't know, to be honest. I sometimes feel a bit like I've seen too much of the little man behind the curtain. I do know that writing about quilting was a hell of a lot more fun when I truly was an outsider, and not so much when I was trying too hard to not be one.

So, I don't know where the next couple of years will take me.  I think there will be a lot of experimenting, and some of that will show up here. Because, ultimately, I just want to Make Stuff, and to be proud of what I make.

Even if nobody gives a damn but me.