Be thin! Be quiet! Efface yourself into the background! Support the efforts of others in your life! "We Are White Lady Genteel (a.k.a. 'low volume')"
And then a counter sub: "I Know My Own Worth" Brassy! Bold! Forward! Confident! Perhaps with a dark background and bright colours?
I'd never get it finished before October.
Pictured: the Gothic Summer Sampler, which took a very standard pattern and simply did it in black and scarlet.
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.
Works In Progress
- postage stamp
- plaidish
- cousin quilt
Daily: Sew one block of something (postage stamp, if nothing else), sew 1 seam of paper-piecing
Weekend (Saturday and/or Sunday): sew four blocks together
- make a backing for a quilt top
Weekly: WIP Wednesday post from now until Christmas
Thinking Forward: design for Quilt Show 2023
I'm absolutely blank on this one right now. They want the quilt finished by entry time - but for the binding. I don't know if it's trying to kick incidental/casual quilters out of the show, or to prioritise/preference non-modern stuff (because modern designs and patterns are more likely to be utilised by younger women who are short on time), or if they really have that many dropouts each year.
I have dropped out of the Quilt Show once. And that was the year I tore a calf ligament two weeks before and my cunning plan to self-quilt Swarm ended up on the couch along with me.
Actually, that's an idea - Swarm II, seeing as I gave away Swarm to a couple who I'm not sure are talking to me anymore after 2016, 2020, and now the 2022 mid-terms.
Quilting ladies don't like to get political for the most part - the thing about being Largely White Ladies means you can ignore politics for the most part, or trust that the White Men will protect you (so long as you fit into their norm of what White Ladies Should Be Like). Being able to ignore politics is something that many others can't do, because the shift and sway of politics affects them, even when the actual policies don't.
For instance, you might have denigrated "the Chinese (government)" for COVID-19. After all, China is a long way off, and 'the Chinese' are a big body of people that you don't usually see or having to interact with, and even so it's mostly people like myself who are culturally integrated.
Unfortunately for people like me, we might very well be culturally integrated, but the way certain people will treat us face to face is as though we're not. And it's no good to say, "well, they're just bad people" because 'they're just bad people' does not eliminate the bruises, the physical injuries, the trembling shock of being openly abused on the street, or the feeling that you'll never be safe again among white people whose smiles disguise their dislike.
By the way, black and brown quilters - whatever their background - have had to live with this treatment for, oh, as long as White America has been ignoring that their society was not only built on the back of black slavery, and by the enforced efforts of black slaves, but that it created a socially stratified (as well as segregated) society.
I digress, but I feel like it's needed. Sure, there aren't too many people reading this, and after 2016 and 2020, I'm fairly sure y'all know where I land on the political spectrum, and most of you haven't gone running away yet...
Anyway. Swarm II. That's the plan. It's going to be messy AF, though. So many small pieces. But maybe it's also time to work up a pattern...
