etc.

Quilting has always been the textile art with the absolute least appeal to me. Most quilts are usually far too country-kitsch for me (with apologies to traditional quilters) and that, coupled with the hitherto lack of interest in sewing, pretty much guaranteed that I would never try my hand at quilting. Ever. Thankyouverymuch. (Go over to Kim’s site and read what she has to say about quilting. She’s right on).

But then, the interweb happened. And wonderfully talented quilters began posting pictures of their work on their websites, and damn, their creations have awed and inspired me and opened my eyes to the fact that maybe you can create simple, punchy quilts that are interesting to look at and appeal to a less-traditional aesthetic. Here are some of these quilters:

• Carol Taylor
• Amy Karol
• M. Joan Lintault
• Judith Martin
• Margaret M. Roberts
• Lynne Heller
• Rose Rushbrooke
• Quilts of Gee’s Bend
• Lori Mason
• Kerstin Svendsen
• Denyse Schmidt

Yesterday, high on all this inspiration and quilty goodness, I quilted myself a little tea cosy that I am, in fact, quite proud of:

A tip of the hat to Kerstin whose creative cozies inspired the shape of this one. I’m really pleased with the way it turned out, there is only one place where the fabric puckered a bit, but I can live with it. The hand-embroidery part was more fun to do than I thought it would be, and I think it adds some interest to the piece, although if I were doing it again I’d probably use a lighter brown embroidery thread for the swirly bit (I was going for that lovely blue-brown combination that usually works so well).

All told, it took me 7 hours to complete, a substantial time investment but a thoroughly enjoyable one that gave me new-found respect for the work that quilters do. The very best part of the process was designing the pattern and being faced with the overwhelming (in the best possible way) prospect of fabric choice, combination, and layout. Such a wonderfully creative process, guess who’s going to be quilting again?