Quilts that tell a story...

A night away from my sewing machine.  Last night I had finished a project that I had been working on this week and it was a new type of work for me.. so I figure it was worthy of sharing for my first ever blog post.

Quilting to me is a process.. There are many steps I go through when I put together a quilt project, especially when it is intended to be a gift.. as most of my quilts are.  When you purchase a Christmas or a Birthday gift you go to the store or you surf on-line for something that reminds you of the person.. something that you feel speaks to how you feel when you think of them or what you think they will enjoy.  Well, it isn't that much different for me when I am preparing a quilt project for a gift.  Each part of the process is like a bit of the gift.. I walk through the fabric stores or dig through my bins and bins of fabric stash for that one fabric that makes me think of that person.. I keep the person in mind the whole time.  For example, a project that is currently in the works on my quilt table I had searched for months to find the fabric... the colors of it, the softness of it, the warmth of it.  I sometimes lay out fabrics and just leave them there for a few days to see if they work together and if they grow on me.. do they 'speak' to how I feel about that person.  Some fabrics feel cold and others feel warm.. not so much how heavy the fabric is but the lightness, darkness and overall 'vibe' you get from the fabric.  I like to match it to the person that I have in my mind.  From picking the fabric to building the design in my book of graph paper, to the fabric cutting and ultimately putting the project together.  It's all part of the process and I try to keep the person in mind the whole time.

This project I have just completed was easy to do this with as I had made my first ever 'photo quilt', or 'memory quilt.'  I am really interested in the history within quilts.  The representation of certain quilt square patterns and what they mean.  Some came about during the depression, some patterns are sewn for newlyweds as a wedding blessing, some tell a story, a journey.  I see this type of photo quilt as a variation of those kinds of old fashioned quilting methods.  I wanted these photos to tell a story, speak to the journey contained in the pictures.  I had always wanted to do one of these but the part I stumbled on was the photos... printing the photos on fabric.  So I did a bit of research and read all the reviews on the product I would need, Printable Cotton.  There were a lot of brands out there and the usual array of ridiculous comments on the reviews pages of all the people who expected photos printed on cotton to be like a photo by a professional photographer.  I tend to ignore those people as they have expectations that can never be filled.  I honed in on the honest, middle of the road reviews and chose which cotton paper I would use.

Jacquard Printable Cotton

I will say I was a bit surprised as to how well this paper worked out.  The photos printed on it look great!  I will recommend if you are thinking of using this the instructions say to use an ink jet printer with at least 600 dpi, I used 1200 dpi found out that those old black and white photos don't print very well if they are just candid shots, studio black and white shots that are in focus and crisp print fine.  Digital photos are best and photos with bright light colors print better than those with dark back grounds.  Here's an example photo printed on cotton fabric sheet (before I removed the backing) compared to the actual digital photo..

Another tip I would give for this type of project is to keep the quilted squares fairly simple as you want the photos to be the star of the show.  I chose to do a 9 patch for a few reasons; I found an example on line that looked to have a good balance between quilted squares and photos for how busy the images are, with only 2 fabrics I could pull a fabric that I had been waiting to use from my stash bins (the darker floral) and only had to purchase the lighter fabric, and lastly the 9 patch is so quick and easy this project took me about 10 hours to complete (about 3 and a half nights).

Tomorrow I will be attending an 80th birthday party for my Aunt, and I wanted to make this quilt for her.  So, part of the fabric for this quilt were photos.  Photos of my aunts life.  Her as a young girl, her wedding, her with her children, family and friends.  Bits and pieces of 80 years of someone's life.  The thoughts of that were hard to get away from while putting this project together.  It was all around me and really thought provoking.  Oh, I've heard the stories from my father a lot of times about how it was when they were young and I've been there for a bit over half of it myself.  But, imagine.. the things you see and do and just the sheer amount of 'living' that goes along with 80 years!! She and my uncle raised 4 children together and are such a close knit family.  I'm sewing along and looking at all these photos and can't help but imagine the 'photos' in her mind.. the still frame memories that fill in the gaps and can be wrapped up into her "quilt", her journey.  I'm sure there are moments that she holds close to her heart that no one has ever seen nor will ever see, except her.  A first date, the moment her babies were born, the first day she watched them drive away in the school bus alone.. the everyday moments that all fall into place over 80 years of being who she is, which is much more than several photos sewn together on fabric.  I hope she enjoys this gift as it is more than just a gift of fabric arraigned in a clever way.. I hope she sees that in these photos of her with many different members of our family are also parts of our lives, places in our memories that will someday be woven into our "quilt", our life journey and that will be where she touched all our lives.

The finished project;