Flavor #5 - Make a Quilt

Make a quilt - Teria Brooking, Ogden UT

February 13, 2010

The Metra glided from stop to stop, a nice change from the clunky CTA. It was Valentine's Day weekend and I was on my way to Arlington Heights to visit my friend, Kara. She had heard about my quilting project and had offered to help me cut out all of my material.

After about an hour of reading and listening to a drunk man, no doubt inspired by the holiday, slur his opinions about love, I arrived in Arlington Heights. Kara met me at the platform and we walked the short distance to her apartment. Hanging out with Kara always makes me feel a tad irresponsible. Kara is 24, has a car, a fully furnished apartment, and shops at Tiffany's. I, on the other hand, am 31, haven't had a car in over five years, live like a gypsy, and make my own jewelry.

Kara had everything set up for our little project. It was hardly surprising that she had quilting equipment. We always tease that Kara is the mother of our group of friends, so out of any of us, she would be the one to have craftsy, grown up, things like a cutting board, template and rotary cutter.

Kara pulled out her rag quilt for some inspiration. A rag quilt simply consists of multiple squares sewn together. Squares of the same fabric as well as a slightly smaller middle layer of batting are sewn together with a large X. The individual sewn squares are then connected to each other with an exaggerated seam purposely showing on one side. After completing the quilt, it is washed to encourage the seams to fray, creating a fun, fuzzy, look.

The first thing we needed to do was to figure out the exact dimensions we wanted. Because Teria and I had originally bought fabric for a different pattern, we had figure out how to use what we had. I had about a 1/4 yard of each material, so it looked as though we could get at least 8 pairs of five inch squares from each. That meant we could either have 3 inch squares with an inch seam, or 4 inch squares with a 1/2 inch seam. I didn't want the frayed seam to overwhelm the actual square, so we settled on the 4 inch square.

I was grateful that Kara knew what she was doing. Little things like knowing which way to cut the material first to get a straight edge, or laying the fabric so that the pattern was cut in the direction of the threading, was extremely helpful. Like my grandmother, I'm a bit of a perfectionist, and I appreciated the care that she took to make sure that the measurements were exact.

Cutting the fabric was a little intimidating at first, especially the longer strips. This kind of mess-up was permanent. You can't just paste the fabric back together. I was more than willing to hold the template in place, and let Kara use her experienced hand with the rotary cutter. She joked that it was years before her mother had let her help cut the fabric. After a while I decided to take a turn. Of course, being left handed, I had to switch the tools around so that she could hold the template and I could cut. Kara had a self-healing board, but I was still afraid of cutting too deep, so often after running the cutter over the fabric, it would still be attached in several places. After a while though, I started to get better feel for the angle of the blade and the feel of it lined up against the template.

Kara and I made up a good team, and the cutting went quickly. It seemed, however, that every time she left me alone, a minute later she'd hear a gasp or a grown signaling that I had made some sort of mistake. Usually the mistakes were a result of me getting impatient. It was a tough lesson that a small movement from my wrist could skew the cut and ruin an entire square, however the fact that the outside of the square would be frayed anyway gave me a little more room to mess up.

We had an excess of some material and not enough of others. The green polk-a-dot fabric, originally intended for the backing, produced 13 squares, while we were only able to get four squares out of the tomato-colored scrap from Grandma. The solid fabric was cut so poorly by the fabric store that I decided to take it back instead of salvaging only 3 squares.

And that's what we did for several hours; cutting fabric, with Olympics playing in the background, pausing every once in a while to watch the men's speedskating or the women's freestyle skiing. The result was 61 nearly perfect squares of fabric.

Better than roses and chocolate any day...even V-Day.

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December 28, 2010

We were supposed to help with my cousin's rehearsal dinner in a couple hours. Once again, we were two women with two babies and too little time.

A couple days before we had gathered for a post Christmas dinner at an Aunt's house. I had spotted a charming rag quilt draped over the back of a chair. I know that rag quilts are usually made from scraps, but I couldn't help but be drawn to comfy feel of the frayed borders. Gratefully, according to Teria, this wouldn't be a huge switch from the pattern we were already pursuing.

So, there we were, back at the fabric store Teria estimated that we needed at least three more fabrics to complete the quilt. The colors that we did have were all very saturated, and she worried that the quilt would be too dark, so it was our mission to pick out some lighter patterns to balance it out more.

We were building on 6 fabrics, so the palette was a little more complicated than before. I was so grateful to have Teria there to help me think outside of what I would normally pick. She discovered a fun star pattern that made me

realize the petals on the fabric from Grandma were actually gold, not green. After sifting through countless amounts of boring beiges I was able to find a lighter version of the plaid that we already had. Finally, to tie it all together, we decided on a solid bluish-green material.

It was a little difficult juggling children and shopping but somehow we triumphed! On the way to Salt Lake City, I looked at my medley of fabrics and marveled that stars, flowers and polk-a-dots could somehow work together. Unfortunately it looked like the new plaid and the old plaid could not be friends, so I decided to abandon the old plaid for the good of the quilt.

I sat back in the seat, determined and delighted. I had my eight fabrics! Now I just had to put the silly thing together.

December 23, 2009

My sister, Teria, pulled into the parking lot. It was two days before Christmas, and about an hour before I had to be on the shuttle destined for Idaho. We both knew that if we didn't shop for fabric before the holiday festivities began, we most likely wouldn't get another chance. Unfortunately, my two nieces, Ivey and Georgia, were blissfully asleep in their car seats. As Teria turned off the engine, we debated what to do. Either one of us could manage one-year-old Ivey, but three-year-old Georgia was too tall and too unconscious to be held for a significant amount of time. I could shop while they all waited in the car, but being that I'm incredibly sentimental and that Teria had suggested this whole quilt idea, I had hoped we could work on it together. Finally, we settled on a plan. Carefully, we laid Georgia in a bed fashioned out of some blankets and a large Toys "R" Us cart. With me manning the cart, and Teria toting Ivey, we entered Joanne's Fabrics.

The fabric store was a familiar sight. Many of my early theatre costumes had started in such a place. My mother would buy the fabric, and my grandmother, a gifted seamstress and perfectionist, would labor over it until it was perfect. It didn't matter what role I had.

If I was a Bar Wench, you could be sure I was the best-dressed Bar Wench on stage.

Purposefully, we made our way over to the quilting books. I had browsed through different patterns on the internet, but hadn't settled on anything. As I thumbed through the different magazines, I began to feel very ignorant. There was so much that I didn't know, and frankly, didn't have time to learn. Teria had actually made quite a few quilts and could translate some of the jargon, but eventually we decided it would be best to ask the woman at the cutting counter for help.

The elderly woman eyed me over the rim of her glasses and asked how much sewing I did. I replied that I didn't. I half-expected her to roll her eyes, but instead she pondered for a moment, then led us back to the magazine rack. She pointed out a magazine that organized patterns by skill level. It also conveniently listed all of the required dimensions and even made fabric suggestions.

Gratefully, I skimmed through the magazine. While my eyes the coveted the workmanship of the more advanced level, I knew that I needed to be smart about this. This was my first quilt and there was no need to be over-ambitious. Reluctantly, I flipped to the Beginner section. There we found a simple, but fun pattern. By simple, I mean a bunch of squares sewn together. By fun, I mean charming and random fabrics.

So, we finally had a pattern; now came the hard part. Our caravan journeyed over to the fabric section. The quantity and variety of material was a little daunting. Gratefully, I had 2 pieces of fabric that I had inherited from my Grandmother's collection. Using this as our foundation, Teria and I started pulling bolts to add to the palette.

By this time, the girls had awakened from their surprisingly peaceful sleep. Unfortunately, this meant I would soon lose my shopping partner. Georgia was unimpressed by her sleeping quarters and Ivey was already pointing out every Santa item she could see.

While Teria chased her curious children around the store, I continued to sort through paisleys and polka-dots. It fascinated me that some fabrics just seemed to belong together, while others were an assault to the eye. Of course, I was just following my instincts. As far as I knew, my assortment of fabric could turn out to be a complete mess.

Teria had rounded up the girls, signaling it was time to go. I had settled on four fabrics in addition to the two from Grandma. I probably needed three more, but we were cutting it close, and there was a long line. Only in Utah would there be long lines at a fabric store. We ended up having the store hold the fabric, so that we could make it to the shuttle in time.

The shuttle pick-up was at a Flying J. Surprisingly I had some time to run inside and get Teria the cash to purchase my material. She had said fabric was expensive. I currently live in Chicago, the city with the highest income tax in the nation, so I took out $60.00.

When I arrived back at the car, I asked how much she thought it would be. She pondered for awhile, and I braced myself for the news. Finally, she answered, "Probably at least $20."

I love Utah.

*This blog entry, I am grateful for family, and for family traditions. At one point while we were shopping, Ivey came racing around the corner yelling excitedly, "Kackee! Kackee!", her attempt at my name. As I swooped her up in my arms, I felt so tremendously grateful to be an aunt, and to be continuing this quilting tradition with my older sister.

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