open for engagement

Crafty thoughts this week.

[1]

My mind and hands have a tendency to wander, in a good way. I like trying new creative things, going off in new directions, then crossing some off the list (watercolour, papier mâché, basketry), and finding that others stick and become a part of my repertoire (bookbinding, cyanotypes). But eventually, like John Major (shudder), I always come back to basics: knitting, reading, baking, and quilting.

I’m knitting (socks, of course), re-reading The Warden (I love Trollope, and he knows all about bad behaviour in public life, the power of the press and church, shame, humiliation, the defence of the indefensible, so this feels incredibly contemporary - he could be writing about the Post Office scandal and today’s media), baking (rock buns, of course), and pushing myself quilt-wise.

[my letterpress poster]

I’m ready to return to quilts. Not that we need any in the house, but with a view to perhaps, maybe, selling some. To do this, though, I need to move on from where I was when I wrote my two books on quilting. In addition, I’m once again giving talks to groups about my quilts, I also need new things to talk about.

I’ve been thinking that maybe I should do a quilt workshop or two to open my mind to different ideas and styles, but realised this was in fact dodging the issue. Change can only come from me (I’m making myself laugh at the idea of me being all reflective and finding my authentic self etc etc). But it’s true, I need to break my own barriers, not ask someone else to tell me what to do.

So I am open to engagement/s.

[c1957]

Just like The Quarry Men. I love this business card from when John Lennon was the leader and Paul McCartney may or may not have joined in the band. It is so formal and grown-up in style and language for teenagers who not long after would break so many rules of engagement with the music world, media, and Establishment (you just have to watch the tightlipped reactions of some passers-by to the rooftop concert in 1969 in Let It Be).

Anyway, the question of engagement with new things. It would be very easy to carry on making big, lively, colourful, floral quilts but when I went to a big quilt fabric shop the week before last, I suddenly came over all tired with this style. Not that I don’t adore fabrics with massive blowsy flowers and brilliant colour mixes, I just don’t want them on their own now. At the same time, I’ve done a little research, looking at who’s in the quilt news and what’s selling in upmarket galleries, and see that plain linen is very much the fabric du jour. It made me wonder if I could do a complete volte-face and adopt good taste, restraint, abstraction, and large areas of plain fabric. Of course not. But I do love linen. I use it a lot in dressmaking, and like its surface texture and feel (very different to plain quilting cottons which I’ve experimented with - both quilts remain unsatisfactorily unfinished). Yet much as I am drawn to the idea of linen-only quilts, and much as I like many that other people are making, I just get disheartened when I start cutting out solids, and not seeing any dots or stripes or leaves or blooms in the piles.

So I had a moment this week when I wondered how linen and quilting cottons would work together. Cue more staring out of the window. Then, as the only slogan/aphorism I have in the house (the “Rock Buns Rule” letterpress print I made doesn’t count as it’s simply a statement of truth) says: “the best way to get something done it to begin”. After the usual displacement activities - ironing fabrics, re-sorting my piles of ironed fabrics, cycling into town to get a new rotary cutter blade, making a space on the floor (time-consuming, that one), cycling into town to get some thread, and debating what to listen to - I just cut out some strips and got started. My friend Lucy who said all those years ago when I was prevaricating, “oh, for goodness’ sake, Jane, just cut up some fabric and sew it back together”, is still right. I can pontificate and procrastinate all I like, but if I don’t do this, I don’t get anywhere. So I went back to Material Matters, one of my favourite podcasts, and listened to the brilliant Ptolemy Mann talk so articulately and energetically about colour, weaving, painting, the blending of art and craft, while I cut out, sewed, laid out, played, experimented, altered, almost gave up, had more tea, wished I’d never started, carried on.

[2]

One of the lovely things about craft and creativity, is what goes on in your mind while you are making things (obvs the soundtrack to this is this), and with this quilt it’s been all about what we do with what we make.

[3]

I am particularly interested in the roles of quilts, the way they generally fall into two categories: the not-to-be-used-washed-touched art quilt, and the to-be-used-touched-washed domestic quilt. The former will never be found on a bed or a settee or hammock, covering a person who is reading, dozing, watching Tik Tok. But this is exactly where I both visualise and actually see my quilts. They are functional items, but ones which enable me to assemble fabrics and colours and designs which I think work together, decide on a quilt design which does justice to the fabrics, shows them off, and creates an overall effect I’m happy with, gives me maximum pleasure when making, and are within my quilting capabilities. There may be elements of artistry and skill, but never once do I think that what I’m making could be described as a piece of art.

[4]

I often come unstuck with crafts which go beyond the functional. On a very prosaic level, I really can’t be bothered with dusting, wiping and cleaning a lot of stuff on display and on walls. This is undoubtedly the legacy of having to dust our Ladderax shelving and contents every Friday as a teenager; so great is the psychological damage that even though I know Ladderax systems are now very sought-after, I’m not even bothered ours wasn’t kept. It was my own domestic version of painting the Forth Bridge, and I hated it.

So quilts as wall-hangings wouldn’t work for me - I’d just wonder how much dust they were gathering, and how on earth you keep them clean. Instead, I like quilts which are ‘displayed’ on surfaces in the home, soft, large, quite thick, wrappable quilts.

It’s taking time to make this quilt top, but I feel I’ve made a start, and can look the framed slogan in the eye now. I’ve also been to the London Centre for Book Arts for a day in the studio making my list books. These are inspired by Japanese account or ledger books, with a very simple stab binding and perforated sheets for lists. They beat looking for scraps of paper or backs of envelopes when you suddenly remember what you need to buy. Alice and Wilson have have now moved back to London, but when they stayed with us for five months, there were many crowd-sourced lists compiled using these sheets, and they became vital and also funny.

[on the fifth and final row]

Just like the shopping list books which I make to be used, my quilts are for every day, because the everyday is important, and because every day is everyday.

Happy Sunday!

PS I’m doing talks in Lavenham and King’s Lynn later this year, and am happy to take more bookings. Can’t promise any rock ‘n’ roll or skiffle, though.