Most of What I Need to Know in Life I Learned from Quilting

This year is quickly coming to an end.

It’s all been a blur – 2024 has literally flown by before I knew it.  Part of my plan this year was to bring you into my quilt studio.  Tell you about some quilt tips and tricks.  Introduce you to a little more quilt history.  And maybe let you in on a few lessons I’ve learned as a quilter.  That’s where we are now.  As we’re rapidly approaching the end of 2024, I would like to take this opportunity to share with you a few (and sometimes hard) lessons I have learned in my 30+ years of quilting. 

I wanted to learn to quilt not so much for the quilts as it was for the fellowship with other quilters.  I enjoy the company of quilters – a wiser, more generous bunch of folks I don’t think I’d find anywhere else.  However, it has been through the process of quilting and learning to quilt I gained insights into other areas of my life.  In short, quilting has taught me more than just how to make quilts.  It’s taught me how to live.

Lesson One:  Perfection Can Be Found in the Simple

Some of the loveliest quilt blocks and quilts are simple ones.  Nine-patches.  Monkey Wrench.  Snowballs. Double Nine-Patch. Half-square triangles.  All of these blocks are simple and can be made with only two colors of fabric.  Easy construction, straight seams.  These are the blocks we introduce to new quilters because of their simplicity.  They do not take long to assemble and on a good afternoon when you have two uninterrupted hours to spare, you can make quite a few of these blocks.  Assembled, they make a lovely quilt top which can be made even lovelier with simple quilting.  When I look at a quilt made from blue and white nine-patches sewn together without sashing to form an Irish Chain Quilt, I honestly don’t think there’s nothing much else in the world that’s anymore perfect.  And it’s absolutely one of the simplest patterns out there. 

Life doesn’t have to be complicated.  Sure, we all walk through our trials.  There are difficult times in everyone’s life, but we don’t have to wallow in permanent despair.  Things change and time moves on ahead.  Despite the hardships we may be facing, joy can be found in simple things.  Clean bed sheets.  A good cup of coffee or tea.  Texting with a friend.  Reading a few pages in a favorite book.  Quilting has taught me that simple things done well give us a few perfect moments in the middle of complete chaos.

Lesson Two:  We Are Never Through Learning

One consistent thing about quilting is this:  There is always something new to learn.  Just when we think we know every method known to man about how to make a flying geese, another one comes along.  And this is great!  The more methods we learn, the more options we have.  What technique works best for me may not work best for you.  So, thank goodness for all the flying geese techniques because heaven knows there are hundreds of quilt blocks that use them.  It was this concept – quilters are never through learning more about quilting – which drew me to quilters.  Open-minded folks are always wonderful to be around.  You learn as much from them as you do from techniques.

Always be open to new information.  You don’t have to agree with it but listen to it.  Sift it through the absolutes you know.  Even if you don’t concur with it, listening to it will give you insights to the person conveying the information to you. 

Lesson Three:  Practice Brings Consistency

One of the first techniques new quilters learn is the quarter-inch seam.  And you know what’s one of the most difficult quilting techniques to perform consistently?  The quarter-inch seam.  That’s why we quilters have so many gadgets and notions to help us perform the quarter-inch seam.  However, the more you sew that seam allowance, the better you get at it.  You’ll even get to the point where you can look at a seam and tell if you’re off a thread or two.  The more I practice any quilting technique, the better I get at it.  Even if I tuck that technique away and don’t use it for a while, I really don’t forget it.  I may be a bit rusty when I return to it, but it doesn’t take long for me to pick it back up.

We’ve heard “Practice Makes Perfect” chanted for most of our lives in nearly every situation.  And while technically perfection can’t be achieved, consistency can – in almost every situation.

Lesson Four:  There are Consequences for Speed

I understand the concept of instant gratification.  I do.  Find a pattern you love online, put it in your cart, hit up PayPal, and sometimes all you have to do then is point, click, and print.  TaDa!  Instant retail gratification. Some quilters enjoy pushing their way quickly through a project so they can move to another one.  If I can hit the pause button for just a minute here, I would like to interject this:  Speed is really not your friend – that is unless you really like quality time with your seam ripper.  The faster you sew, the more mistakes your apt to make.  The more mistakes you make – well, those can be discouraging because no one likes to rip their block apart and re-sew it.  Recently I discovered a new way speed doesn’t work well – quilting with rulers.  Don’t let all those YouTube and Instagram videos fool you.  Those ruler quilting reels are sped up.  Slow and steady wins the race when quilting with rulers, as well as with most other quilting techniques.

There are some things in life (and quilting) you can do faster than others.  Just be discerning enough to know which ones you can and which ones you can’t.

Lesson Five:  Learn to Think Outside the Box

Quilting teaches this lesson in spades.  Making a quilt and you need three yards of fabric for the borders, but when you measure things out you discover you only have 2 ½?  We can figure that out.  Throw in some contrasting cornerstones and maybe some creative piecing with leftover scraps and we have those borders covered.  Most of us have learned it’s really kind of rare for a quilt to completely fall within the directions we’re given.  We may run short of fabric, make the blocks smaller than needed, or there could be mistakes in the directions.  If any of these situations pop up, we have to work with the fabric we have and come up with some new ideas.  Quilters do this all the time.

In life, it pays to be flexible.  Whether it’s the grocery store being out of plain flour and you have to substitute self-rising, or we simply have too much to do in a day.  Seldom are things truly bad or life and death situations.  Quilting teaches you to pause, take stock of what’s available, and make some decisions.  Sometimes those decision may be radically different than what you originally wanted, but it does help to be flexible.

Changing the subject just a bit… you may remember this quilt.

This is my 2023 Temperature Quilt (pattern available at White Arbor Quilting/Bethanne Nemesh).  Each bird represents one week in the year; hence there are 52 birds.  These are paper pieced blocks, and I had a blast making these feathered babies. I didn’t know temperature quilts were so popular with quilters until after I completed mine.   So much so that the Australian Catholic University and Dr. Tracey Clement began to track these quilts and their makers.  Dr. Clements saw my quilt on Instagram and asked if I would participate in her survey.  I agreed to, and this week she sent me the rough results, which I thought I would share with you.  The survey was open 63 days, and 176 quilters completed the survey.  Nine quilters had not completed a temperature quilt, so that left 167 valid responses.  All of the responders are female – which was unexpected by not surprising.  Most of the quilters fell in the 65-74 age range with the 55-64 age range coming in a close second.  Demographics out of the way, let’s see why quilters decided to make a temperature quilt.

I had my suspicions the world of academia assumed we were making these quilts as a response to global warming – did it show up in any of these quilts and how widely did the temperatures swing?  While this reason for making a temperature quilt did show up in the survey, it had the fewest number of responses (about 5).  The majority of respondents (> 60) were like me – they saw a temperature quilt on social media and decided they wanted to make one (like we do a lot of quilts!).  The third most popular reasons (around 16 for each category) were quilters liked the idea of a year long project and/or liked the idea of having complete control over the outcome.  The second reason listed for making a temperature quilt was “other” and it held steady at about 55 responses. 

Unsurprisingly (at least to me), 2020 was the year most of these temperature quilts were made.  This makes sense.   We all were home, sewing our stashes to the bare bones.  The year I made my quilt (2023) was the second most temperature quilt productive, followed by 2021. Which to me also makes sense.  By the time all those 2020 quilters began flashing pictures of their temperature quilts online, a bunch of us decided we wanted to make one, too!

According to Dr. Clement, there will be follow-up interviews and more data analysis before she publishes her findings.  I’m kind of anxious to see what she finds out. 

Until Next Week, From My Studio to Yours,

Love and Stitches,

Sherri and Felix