WIP Wednesday: the one with thinky thoughts about low-volume

Other than completing the 2nd quilt for the NSW Quilt Guild show (different to the Craft and Quilt Fair), I don't really have much this week.

GENERAL THINGS

I submitted a 2nd quilt. It was not complete at the time of submission.

I have some more fabric for the rest of the borders, but it's still going to be a rather small quilt - only 100x120cm. Lap-quilt at best, not even a single bed.

 

DRESSMAKING

 

QUILTING:

Friends' Quilt to get quilted by quilter - I texted her but haven't taken the quilt and batting and everything over yet. I need to check the size, and also that the batting is actually large enough for the quilt.

 

BINDING:

Still - still! - four quilts to bind. If I start by making the binding, that will kick-start the act of actually binding the things.BACKING:

Show Quilt 1 to quilt - by me. I made a backing, but then I decided I didn't like the fabric (I think it's a polycotton blend) and will replace with what I know is cotton.

 

PIECING:

The border of the abovementioned Show Quilt 2.

 

THOUGHTS I HAD

I was looking through the submissions for the ACQ (Australian Craft and Quilts?  not sure, tbh) show which is at the Sydney International Conference Centre and the 'Craft And Quilt Fair' in early July, and looked at possibly submitting for the Modern Quilt Guild next year. Submission to be done by October, to the theme: low-volume.

There's a part of me that wants to do low-volume in darks.

"But darks aren't low-volume!"

Look, American quilting is very...American. Which means there's a big emphasis on whites and lights and neutrals and 'feminine'  - a very distinct genderisation and also a very particular colourism. (To deny that America - and more broadly Western culture - has colourism embedded in their perceptions of colour is naive at best and stubbornly obstructive at worst.)

"Low volume" is presumed to mean 'reads as white' but I don't see why it can't mean 'reads as a solid'.

(You could also read 'low volume' in a very gender- and race-oriented way in the manner in which women are taught not to take up space. Be thin! Be quiet! Efface yourself into the background! Support the efforts of others in your life! Don't be proud or up-front or bossy or brassy! Which is also why many white American traditions of genteel self-effacement are affronted by the boldness of traditional black culture. That's a whole other conversation to be had. But it's certainly something to think about since quilting shows tend to be a very "white lady genteel" thing when run at the scale of current major quilt shows.)

The Duct Tape Galaxy quilt used a lot of low-volume fabrics, although overall the colours are the thing that the eyes are drawn to, right?

Anyway, I'll have to think about it some. A dark quilt that showcases the delicate tones of colour in darker fabrics? Would they accept that? Maybe? Maybe not. But it would be a challenge that I'd love to undertake - both a challenge to myself and also a challenge to the establishment.

Thoughts. Thinky thoughts.