About a year and a half ago now I started learning how to quilt thanks to my friend Lydia, and for this past Christmas I made my third completed quilt as a gift for my friend Katie.
One thing I love about quilting is the creative opportunity that it presents. Each quilt that I’ve completed so far has started with the same general idea, the half-square triangle, and each one has turned out completely different in the end. Learning that approach alone creates so much possibility for design, and half the fun for me is in sitting down with a handful of HSTs and moving them about like a puzzle to create a design that really jumps out at me for the current project. It’s just so cool! And it’s beyond satisfying when I find something I like and stick with it.
I actually haven’t used a pattern to make any of my quilts yet, and on the one hand that is so much fun because I get to put my creative muscles to use–but I’m also looking forward to the day that I find a pattern I love (or that I think someone else will love) and trying my hand at something more than winging it. The funny thing is that I’ve been knitting for years and have never made a pattern of my own from scratch. I’ve never really had the patience or the desire for it. But with quilting, I haven’t much bothered with patterns, besides the occasional bit of browsing, because it’s an entirely different kind of satisfaction when I’m quilting without that kind of guidance or restraint.
So much of this quilt came together as I was working on it: the square patterns, the addition of the black space, the quilting pattern. I even chose the quilting thread in the middle of the project, debating between black or purple for the top. When I went to Joann Fabrics to browse thread colors, ultimately deciding I’d be choosing a purple, not only did I get a purple but I got a variegated thread with beautiful shades. It added such a cool dimension to the quilting design that I never would have thought of if I hadn’t given myself the freedom to just browse thread colors halfway through the project. (And, no surprise, I am now more than a little obsessed with variegated thread.)
I see so many more quilts in my future–I’m pretty sure we’re going to be buried under throw blankets in our next house. If at some point you no longer hear from me, just know that I went in one of the best ways possible: comfortably wrapped in an endless blanket burrito.
Last summer, I joined rukristin’s Awesome Ladies Project online community to help on my scrapbooking journey, and one of my favorite projects that I’ve done so far as part of the site is her “Best of…” course. It’s quick and simple to fill out the sheets she provides (although choosing favorites isn’t exactly easy), and when I had my list narrowed down, I went through the paper books I already had from zine making, picked a few pieces I thought coordinated, and started putting together my first mini book.
For months I’ve been obsessed with scrapbooking. It’s on my radar as a possible creative activity for years, since around the time 30 Days of Lists started, but it’s only recently that I’ve finally begun dipping my wallet toes into it, and as I was working on a mini book of my favorite reads from 2019, I realized part of what I love so much about it–scrapbooking is surprisingly similar to zines. Even digital design is similar in the way you layer, create text blocks, and just pour yourself into it to tell your story. The biggest difference, of course, is that you don’t really publish scrapbooks. At most, we share photos of our works on Instagram or blogs, but there’s no photocopying and distributing like with zines. The act is similar, though, in laying out the pages and telling stories.