This past week, I spent time with five young people in a quilt camp at the store where I teach.
Four girls, ages 11-13, and one boy, my son, age 12. Yes, my son does sew and quilt, poor thing! I force him to attend a class with me each summer, doing fun projects. He initially complains but really gets into it as the week goes on. This is the summer that he became aware of girls, so he didn’t protest as much as years passed. Even though, he sat at a table by himself and wore headphones, keeping himself pretty removed from them. The only girl who is at the age to be interested in boys didn’t pay any attention to my son, as she is totally in love with “American Idol” contestant, John Peter Lewis.
Our project for the week was copying photos to fabric and making scrapbook quilts. The girls had a competition between them to see who could make the most quilts during the week we had together. JPL’s biggest fan won having made five quilts, of JPL. On Friday morning, everyone complained about how fast the time went and how they wished they had another week. That’s a pretty big compliment. They were a great group of students and I thoroughly enjoyed working with them.
But it isn’t the amount of quilts that were made that impressed me about these students. It was how they worked, how motivated they were and how focused they were on their projects. They were phenomenal in picking fabrics for their quilts, just the right pieces to tell the stories that illustrated their pictures.
For example; one girl, Krysti, owns horses and loves to ride. She took a class from me earlier in the summer, and during that week, her horse died. It was devastating for her. Last week, she brought in pictures of her horse and made a quilt using fabrics that are synonymous with horses. Red blanket plaid, brick wall fabric with vines growing on the brick, red hearts, and farm animals. It was perfect!
Lindsay, the “fan”, chose yellow stars, red hearts, and a border print that had flashing lights and bright stars. It was perfect!
Sarah had a picture of her favorite aunt and her new husband taken at Christmas. She chose red plaid, a white snowflake tone-on-tone print, and a christmas red-and-green checked fabric — then sewed on star and reindeer buttons.
Shawna made a very special quilt for her father. She had a picture of herself when she was about two years old that was just priceless. She picked three perfect fabrics to surround her picture, then sewed ribbon roses in each corner. Using rubber stamped papers as embellishments, she chose a dragonfly, a daisy, a swirly heart, and the words “sweet girl” to stitch onto her quilt in just the right spots to complete an original piece of art.
Robin, a certified baseball nut, copied his favorite baseball cards of players from the SF Giants and the Oakland A’s to make a Battle of the Bay wallhanging for his room.
I really wish I had thought about bringing my camera to class on Friday so I could take pictures of their quilts — I don’t know why I didn’t! I could have posted them here. Each of these quilts will be on display at “A Bountiful Harvest” quilt show in November, as a part of a special exhibit of quilts made by young people. You will be amazed by the talent of these young quilt artists.
Young people have no boundaries, no notions of what is “supposed to be right”, or the proscribed way to make quilts. They just create from the heart and don’t worry about their seam allowances or the opinion of others. I have to think about creating quilts that way more often. It certainly is a lot more fun and doesn’t take nearly as long.
Some times I agonize over quilts for days, and search for fabrics for weeks. I worry about all of the quilts I want to make and how little time I have left on the earth, after all, “the” milestone birthday is just around the corner. Oh well, I guess I will get some done, and I won’t get some done. As many as time permits!
happy quilting!
Annie