I am fascinated by the variety of styles within the quilt world: Baltimore Album, Civil War, 1930’s, Amish, Art quilts, Cute quilts, Landscape quilts, Hawaiian, Traditional, Modern. These are just a few of the different recognizable styles of quilts and more are emerging every year. It is wonderful to be a part of this growing and changing creative field. Every time I visit a quilt show I see something new and astounding. It is very inspiring.
I attended a panel lecture for those who want to be published. It was in the middle of the process of producing my book; Applique Workshop for C&T Publishing. I looked around me and the audience was predominantly white-haired. It set me to thinking. Most quilt books are aimed at the average quilter who is about 62 years old and has 5 or more years of quilting experience. There are books with cute quilts for kids and art quilts, but the largest category of design style is aimed at the older female. My first book was and my second will be. My third and fourth book ideas are inspired by the students in my design classes at the local junior college. They grew up with computers and are comfortable designing with computer programs to create art in an emotional and energetic style. I would like to add some of their design styles to my quilt world. For a while, I have been worried that quilting would go the way of macramé, latch hooking, and cross-stitch. They were once very popular and then one year no one was selling new patterns and the shows closed. I now see that quilting will rarely go through a 1950-1960s downturn of popularity, especially if we teach quilting to our children and young adults. I learned to quilt when my boys finally started school. I was experienced at crochet, latch hooking, cross-stitch, needlepoint, embroidery, garment sewing, stained glass, and tatting. I love learning new skills so it only took 3 quilts to get me hooked on quilting. But so many of quilting’s brightest lights are grey-haired. I still pay a hairstylist to keep me out of that category. But I want the creativity of the quilt world to survive me and my generation and that requires sharing my enthusiasm for designing and teaching.
