Hand Piecing & Quilting: Cool?
Or is it a lost art, deemed as too old fashioned to be learned?
Aug 27, 2006
I spent several years wanting to make a quilt, and then a short period of time collecting the necessary gear to do so. My problem wasn't getting the spirit to come upon me, though... it was fear. Fear that I couldn't do it, and fear of failing, because I didn't have a sewing machine or any machine sewing background at all (save for a long history of being an embroidery freak). So I just continued coveting quilts.
A few years ago my mother-in-law died of cancer. She was the kind of person who actually used the stuff that ordinary people saved "for good". Candles, linen, china, even liquor. She really knew how to live and did so to the fullest, and when I went home that morning, after that long painful night of holding her hand and frantically praying as she slowly passed away, I thought long and hard about that. I figured that was something I could easily learn to do: live life to the very fullest. What was I waiting for? Turns out I was waiting for nothing. So I rolled up my sleeves and got my hands dirty. I did more living. I started using all of the stuff I'd stored "for good"... and I started quilting.
I had no sewing machine so I researched and learned how to make templates, cut them, trace the templates on the fabric, cut them out, make the sewing lines, and then hand-piece them together. It took me three days to do what took the rest of my quilt guild just an hour: one 12" block. I was the lone hand-sewer, and as such I was pointed out by our instructor to everyone in that packed room. They gave me sad looks of pity, but I wondered why they felt that way... I had enjoyed every minute of hand-piecing my block. When I completed my quilt tops, I found out how to hand-quilt them. They looked incredible when they were finished and I received more compliments on my patience (whaaa?) and abilities. The truth is this: hand-piecing and hand-quilting is easy, fun, and gives you a fabulous finished piece. You can aim for perfection and get heirloom results, or go for a folk-art style and include funky, chunky, irregular stitches. It's up to you and your own individual style.
I've studied quilts and quiltmaking and fabrics and tools and methods and techniques for years. I could have started right off with sewing on a machine, had I the means to go out and get one (and the knowledge of how to use it), but I didn't. I started out with hand-piecing and am I ever glad I did. I found that Jinny Beyer (http://jinnybeyer.com) is a skilled hand-piecer who displays her completed work online and encourages others to hand piece their quilts. She also offers her own hand piecing patterns. Georgia Bonesteel (http://georgiabonesteel.com) is a well-known hand-quilter and has produced television series and shows about her lap quilting methods. Hand-piecing and sewing might seem like a lost art, but with great artists like Jinny Beyer and Georgia Bonesteel around the torch is still carried. And when you factor in groups that still sew exclusively on old-fashioned treadle machines... well... the old ways are still very much being used!
One of these days, I'll get to keep one of my quilts. When I do it will be a slowly made hand-pieced one; one with complicated shapes and maybe some applique. I might even start one now as I wait to set up my new sewing room. Until then, as I make quick quilts for friends, family, and loved ones, they will be done on the machine so I can wrap up the people I know in one of my creations promptly and when the time is right.
