Thursday, June 13, 2013

Beating to My Own Drum

June 13 2013,

Recently, someone asked me if I belonged to the local modern quilt guild. I told her no. She continued talking about the guild and encouraged me to join it.

This made me analyze the type of quilter I was. Quilter's often get labeled as: modern, traditional, hand quilter, machine quilter etc. Here's an article from another blog that explains some of the different types of quilters.

I would categorize myself as a hand quilter, art quilter and visionary quilter. But am I a modern quilter? I can and I do make modern quilts, but my heart is not there. When I create a modern quilt, it's just a quilt, it's not that special quilt. To conclude the conversation in my mind, the question of joining the modern quilt guild would be no.

I work better by myself. My closest quilting partner would be my husband. He really does not have much of a say in things, but I would occassionally bounce ideas off of him. The tough part for hubby is that if the quilt is not 100% laid out, he can't vision it. He can't see the completed piece until it's all there in front of him, and by then, changing things can be like pulling teeth.

So the next question is, is it a bad thing to not collaborate and socialize with other quilters? Am I stuck in my own box? For now, I enjoy beating to my own drum. I have my ideas, and to put it bluntly, I don't want anybody else's input.

Some have asked, do you make custom quilts? So far, I have only done one, a t-shirt quilt. My concern about doing custom quilt is the input process. If I cannot choose my own fabrics, color choices, pattern, etc. it would not be an artistic journey, but instead feel like a job. I already have a job, why would I want another one.

If you're a quilter, what type of quilter are you?

Quilt & Bitch






2 comments:

regan said...

I'm definitely NOT modern! I like repro fabrics and antique quilts, hand piecing and quilting, but I do machine quilt, too! And I work best alone, too.....and my hubby is EXACTLY like yours....can't see the vision unless it's right in front of him. I don't belong to any guilds anymore cuz no one ever worked on quilts during the meetings, and it was more about the business end, than inspiring people to try new things or get better. It was so disappointing, and I realized I was wasting precious quilting time sitting there listening to the blah blah blah. I'd bring handwork to do, but I was the only one!

Quilt+Bitch said...

Hi Regan, That's funny, I feel the same way with quilt guilds, wasting previous time when I can be doing something more productive. How do you feel about being labeled a specific type of quilter? Quilt & Bitch