My sister-in-law, Edwina Trussell, has been involved in the time-honored activity of quilting since 1981. Since then, she has quilted 195 items, she tells me. This includes bed quilts, pillow covers, and wall hangings. She also has made quilts for babies at her local hospital.
I remember her colorful wall hanging in their dining room, when they lived in New Hampshire. It so impressed me in its beauty, I recall with embarrassment, that I spilled my wine. At least, I blamed it on the wall hanging.
One might consider Edwina a relative newcomer to the art when one considers that quilting has been a form of art since before the birth of Christ. But Edwina has been interested in everything about the art for at least the past generation or more. She is teaching her younger granddaughter the skill now.
Although quilting is engaged in mainly by women to reflect the lives of the people who create them, and of how quilts record the cultural history of a particular place and time, some men quilt too. Men have used quilting for diverse purposes: to keep warm, to decorate their homes, to express their political views, to remember a loved one.
Made by hand, using familiar materials such as scraps of clothing, quilts are personal and communal, aesthetic and functional.
My brother, Edwina’s husband, does not engage in quilting, although he is proficient in completing crossword puzzles, if you can define that as a skill.
A recent article in the Los Angeles Times reported on a movement that’s putting a new spin on the old craft of quilting. The story said the new movement is attracting a new generation of sewers.
When Alissa Haight Carlton and Latifah Saafir organized the first Modern Quilt Guild meeting in Silver Lake in October 2009, they hoped they would find a few other like-minded quilters who wanted to get together.
They weren't alone: The modern-quilting group today has more than 100 chapters and 5,000-plus members nationwide. Thanks to a movement that's putting a new spin on the tradition of quilting is attracting a new generation of sewers. "Quilting is the new knitting," Carlton says, referring to the styles of the craft popular in this century. "Sewing took a little longer to find its way."
Interest in modern quilting started to grow after the 2002 debut of the museum exhibition "The Quilts of Gee's Bend," a collection of unusual graphic designs by African American quilters from a small Alabama community. Modern quilters, such as Denyse Schmidt, began to publish books about the style, and quilters linked up online to share ideas and work.
That's where Carlton and Saafir connected. Both had regularly visited Rossie Hutchinson's Fresh Modern Quilts Flickr group, an early form of social media for quilters. Then in 2009, Carlton wrote a blog post lamenting the lack of visibility for the blooming modern style at a Long Beach quilt convention. Saafir had attended the same convention and suggested they meet and start a modern quilting group.
They did, and word of their group soon spread through the Internet. Chapters formed across the country. "Modern quilters were already eager to start meeting, since we were already talking online through our blogs and Flickr," Carlton says.
Now, the L.A. Times story said, Carlton is executive director of the national Modern Quilt Guild, and in addition to working as a casting director on reality TV shows, she has written two books on modern quilting and last year released a line of fabrics. Saafir, a mechanical engineer, has a website called the Quilt Engineer. She also teaches quilting classes at Sew Modern in West L.A.
Practitioners say there's no strict definition of modern quilting. But characteristics of a contemporary quilt can include an emphasis on solid colors and bold, minimalist designs; experimentation with negative space; a reworking of traditional fabrication techniques; and an improvisational approach to pattern making.
According to the International Quilt Study Center, an ivory carving of the Temple of Osiris found in 1993 and currently in the British Museum features the king of the Egyptian First Dynasty wearing a mantle/cloak that appears to be quilted.
So, there may be some new trends in quilting. But there is not much that’s older.
Tait Trussell is an old guy and fourth-generation professional journalist who writes extensively about aging issues among a myriad of diverse topics.