old masters

Last summer I spent a week in western New York in a workshop at Quilting by the Lake. The instructor was Betty Busby.

da Vinci

Klimt

Monet

Renoir

O'Keefe

Munch

IS IT HARD TO SELL A QUILT?

A FRIEND ASKED ME LAST NIGHT...Is it hard to sell a quilt?

My first reaction was Well yes its hard to SELL a quilt. People do not understand how much time effort and expense go into the making of a quilt....so its very hard to get the money that its worth for a quilt. Quilting has to be one of the most labour intensive arts there are. Fabric costs a lot of money. and time is money they say... so it costs a lot of money to make a quilt..and a lot of money to sell a quilt and get that money back..and make some money for the artistic and creative aspect of the art. Is there ever enough money to have to pay for the hours that you spend in the making of any art.

Calendar 2014

I sold this quilt. Its a calendar that I made in 2014. I made one block a day. marking time in fabric. It was in a show and was purchased by someone..I don't know who bought it or where it's gone but I am so honoured that someone liked it well enough to pay money for it and I hope they had a good spot to hang it.
In my head I have a picture of it hanging in a long hallway or maybe at the top of the stairs. Its colourful and interesting and I hope that the owner appreciated it. I think they do.

And then I realized that my friend was asking.  Is it hard to sell a QUILT? Is it hard to let it go? Is it hard to let go of something that you have spent so much time and labour making? Maybe.. maybe its hard to let it go into a new world where they might not really know why that quilt was made and appreciate all of the little decisions that made that quilt appear. Decisions about fabric choice and colour representations. Why you chose to do what you did when you made the quilt.

Is it hard to let it go? For money?

Calendar 2015

How long did it take you to make this quilt is a question that comes up frequently. And the answer is difficult. Sometimes a quilt takes a very long time from conception to completion. A deadline helps.

Well this one took a year--its a calendar representation of one year in my life...one block a day ..every day ..for a year.  That's a commitment that I didn't know I could keep. I am not a committed person.  I don't like to do the same thing at the same time every day. I am easily bored with routine.and I committed to making one block a day..every day for a year.

And I did it again.

And the third time I tried to start another one I failed. In January 2016 I decided not to start another one. I just didn't think I wanted to do it. Then in late June I decided that I would try again. It really doesn't matter when you start. So I started on July 1.and I worked for about a month and a half on my new project but I just really didn't enjoy doing it and I abandoned it mid August.

So now we are coming to the end of another year. I think I am ready for another year long commitment. I am going to start another calendar quilt.

 These are my rules.
 Fabrics from my stash..that's a given. I have lots and lots of fabirc in my stash.
one block a day..every day..no going ahead..or falling behind..one a day...
I think that I  will alter the layout a bit this year. I would like it to be more bedshaped ..I am not sure yet how I will arrange the block but I think it will work out.

For the other two calendar quilts I stitched the blocks together by month,,but I don't think I will do it that way this time.. and I stitched them together as I made them. I will do that for sure. I don't want to be left with a huge bag of blocks that need to be assembled at the end of the year.
And maybe I won't stop at the end of the year..maybe. I am leaving the finish date open. I might keep going for a little longer. (Ahhhh such optimism at the beginning of a big project)

Wish me luck.

The Anonymous Quilter

I am an anonymous quilter. I don't often show my work to anyone--especially anyone outside of my small circle of friends who like the stuff I make. When my husband asks what I am working on, my usual reply is " Oh just fooling around with an idea--hope it works!" I have a few quilts that I have never shown my daughters--the one I made to conjure a little girl from China--I have never shown them.

More precious than gold, worth more than all the tea in China

I like it that way. It's too personal to show to just anyone.

I also don't tell anyone that I write a blog. It's for me--if you happen to stumble upon it--that's good but otherwise it's just for me. If you enjoy it when you read it, that's good, but not really necessary to me.

The other night, I was watching Madam Secretary. She is the Secretary of Something Big in the US government. Her life is full with trying to raise a family and fight fires for the President. She was invited to make a graduation speech for a big university, but sent her speech writer in her place. She was too busy. Her speech writer, I can't remember his name, apologized for being her substitute but then went on to tell the graduates that there are a lot of very important jobs that go virtually unknown and that maybe that's where many of them should focus their attention. For every Big Wheel there are a lot of little wheels that keep things moving along.

Maybe that speech was for me. Maybe I will never be Nancy Crow or Elizabeth Barton or Lisa Call or any of the other world famous quilters who get invited to put on show, who are paid thousands of dollars to give a trunk show and whose work sells in the thousands of dollars range. That's really OK with me. I don't want to be them. I just want to look at their work, and admire it and them go home and make more quilts.

I think that I am happy just with what I have. I am still going to make quilts--and I am still going to apply to be included in shows--and I am still going to get the rejection letters. My quilts might not be included in a lot of shows but they are still good. They tell stories about me and mine, they cheer people up, they brighten my life. My friends often look at someone's work or a piece of fabric and say "Oh that's one for Karen. She'd like this" That means that they recognize my style. Sometimes, I wonder why they pick a certain thing that they think I would like but that's OK , too.

Bloom where you are planted@2009

I think I have reached an age when I know that a lot of things that I maybe wanted to do at some time are just not going to happen. I am never going to live in a little cabin in the woods.(but I might soon have a little trailer on my daughters property--even better)my house is not going to be in House Beautiful, I am never going to learn how to fly an airplane. I am not going to get a PHD in anything. But I can still make a lot of quilts. I know that I won't need to buy any fabric!!

So, if you stumbled into my little corner, thanks for stopping by. I hope you liked it.

karenwhojustwantstohavefun.