Community?

 This weekend I am taking part, for the second year, in the 2026 virtual retreat for the Quilters Guild of the British Isles.  It's quite a big event, apparently they have 533 registrations, so at £50 a ticket, it is hopefully quite a moneymaker for the guild.  It's a mixed programme, ranging from quilt history through to charity quilting initiatives, with profiles of artists, a presentation from Schmetz needles and more. So quite a variety.  Only one 'make' this year, which was arty one-inch cube boxes which didn't appeal to me so I didn't do that one.  I've spent most of the day working through my five quilts waiting for binding while listening.  For the first half of the day, I was feeling good about the sense of community: having some company in my sewing room; finding out more about the UK quilting scene; learning about what other quilters are doing and how they do it, some social contact, seeing glimpses of people's work in the background.  Quilting can be quite a solitary hobby.  

However, in the second half the day, possibly because I was growing tired, I started to feel a bit depressed.  I think it's partly imposter syndrome from seeing all the amazing things people are producing, and how productive they are, and they have the energy to make quilts with a million tiny pieces, and they are putting things in shows and holding exhibitions and taking part in guild challenges etc.  And partly it is the relentless focus in the UK on design, contemporary abstracts, quilt art etc. which I don't relate to at all as I come more from the American design tradition.  It doesn't appeal to me to do, for example, a series on leaves - one woman was collecting leaves in the garden, photocopying them, using design software to extract graphic elements from the photocopies, then creating needlework of elements of the leaves in a variety of styles from boro to applique to crayon art, hand dyed interfacing etc etc.  So no actual product at the end of it, just lots of samples.  That sort of art/design activity is very admired in the UK - it's not for me.   But it does make me feel like I'm just pottering away, making bed quilts I don't need and not often stretching myself.  So  exposure to the community today has been a bit of a double-edged sword.

But as one woman said earlier in the day, and the internet says it is a quote from Katherine Hepburn: “If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased.”  Quilting, and crafting in general, has always been as much about protecting and improving my mental health as it has been about producing anything, or being artistic.  There's another full day of programme tomorrow, hopefully after a night's sleep I will be refreshed and feeling more positive.

So today I was tackling the three bed quilts, large wallhanging and small wallhanging all waiting to be bound. Two of them were already pressed and trimmed.  I pressed and trimmed the other three, and made hanging sleeves for  both of the wallhangings.  Then there was just lots of machining on binding.  I've done four of them, one more bed size quilt to tackle tomorrow.  Now I need to do all the meters of  handsewing to finish the bindings - I can't manage stitching binding down on the machine, I never get a tidy result.

I finished quilting the baptist fan design on the Checkered Dresden Fan quilt - this is a picture before I washed it - and it was one of the quilts I sewed binding on to, today.  I'm definitely getting better at the stitching, in person you can see an improvement towards the end compared to the beginning.  I'm not entirely happy with how big the fan is compared to traditional handquilting, that's a function of the rulers I'm using, but the design has good coverage and a nice texture. The quilt is huge, and I don't know what I'm going to do with it. It's too big to donate to Quilts for Care Leavers or Project Linus.  I've now loaded  the Fat Cat Ruler Dresden Plate quilt onto the frame, ready for it to get the baptist fan treatment as well.

I also finished weaving the almost three meter strip of sock wool woven cloth.  My ball of weft yarn ran out just a little short of the end of the warp.  Since taking these photos, I have hand-fulled the weaving in the sink which has given it a softer, fuzzier texture and closed up the weaving.  The plan is to cut it up and use it to sew some small items.  My niece is coming to the UK  in a few months so I plan to make her a few things with it as gifts.

Continuing to whittle down my stash of mini kits.  I attempted a wheelbarrow of cardboard which I think was another old club project, but it was just too crude and a bit out of scale, so I ended up throwing it out.  The next one out of the basket was a Pat Cutforth Cancer Research kit to cover a cardboard trunk with faux leather - but where was the trunk?  After looking through my cupboards, I eventually located the cardboard trunk in a collection of boxes and mini baskets.  The faux leather had become rather brittle with age, and the cardboard trunk was a somewhat crude base to work on, but it turned out alright in the end.  It doesn't really fully close nor fully open, so would have to be displayed as it is.

It's been a bit of a running joke in this house since I retired, that I have trouble remembering what day of the week it is - since I don't have the framework of a working week/weekend any longer.  I saw a clock on Facebook for elderly people that says the day of the week, and joked about it to DH.  But the more I thought about it, the more I realised it would actually be useful.  So I have bought one - embarrassingly it is marketed as a clock for dementia sufferers.  I'm not that far gone.  But I'm appreciating being able to easily see the date and date of the week at a glance.  I probably don't need to be told that it's afternoon or early evening or whatever - not yet anyway.