Why Do You Quilt?

 Why do you quilt? 

Friend Laurie and I have  been having a running conversation about crafting, the idea of doing it for the doing, not the selling and feeling the pressure to produce, especially for someone else.  She is making some really amazing small critters and dolls that I have been trying to persuade her to sell.  But no, she said.  She wants to make them for the making's sake, for the comfort it gives her brain and the joy it gives her to give them away to people she wants to give them to. I realized that's part of why I quilt, too.

I've always needed to be doing something with my hands.  Evenings are meant for stitching of some sort. It started with a class in needlepoint, then counted cross stitch then picked up the knitting I learned when I was ten and then took a quilting class to prove to myself I wouldn't like it.

  

Recently I read an article about schoolhouse samplers and the author remarked that the samplers she purchases are damaged, raveling, faded, old, some over 200 years old, and she imagines the girls who made them.  She imagines the child in times, when girls were not given the freedoms of their brothers, as someone who "wants to be seen."  The author said you can learn a lot about a girl from her sampler: her name, age, dates, and sometimes the names of her teacher, school, parents, friends, hometown or village and if you are so inclined you can research the date and learn about the historical context she lived in. You can research the verse she may stitch into her sampler.

                                                                 We just want to be seen.  Now, there's a thought.

     

Quilts can be considered the same. They were made by someone who was trying to creatively make something utilitarian.  Quilts were made to be used. If a quilt is used a lot, it will be used up and then you know it served its true purpose. 

Friend Laurie makes small animals and dolls for joy of making them, naming them, giving them to people she loves, oh, and for having a creative outlet. I make quilts for the same reason.  Our retreat group once talked about this and some were concerned about what will happen to their quilts when they die because their children 'weren't interested in them.'  "And besides," one said, "when I'm gone, I'm gone and I don't care what happens to them."  That friend clearly quilts for the joy it gives her now.

 I don't label my quilts.  I understand the reasoning behind signing quilts.  Many decades ago I knew someone who didn't sign her cross-stitch samplers because, she said, "it looks like you're saying 'Look what I did!' " I clearly remember telling her "you're not showing off, you're taking responsibility for it." But still, I don't sign my quilts.

Maybe I don't sign them because I never intend to show my quilts, nor give them away to people other than my family and they already know I made them. If they are used well they will be used up.

I'm not stopping making quilts as long as my fingers allow it and my stash is as big as it is. Nor am I concerned with what will happen to them when I die.  I know my daughter, daughter-in-law and grand kids will take them.  I make quilts now for the creative enjoyment of it.  When I am gone I will have made quilts that keep my family warm.