I had a few inspirations for this assignment. The first being the Gee’s Bend assignment from a few weeks ago. It helped me realize that I could make my quilt as interesting as I desired, and that’s what I wanted. I really wasn’t interested in making a quilt that was visually boring, and I especially did not want to make one that wasn’t fun to create. Thus, I decided to make an abstract piece. The second thing that inspired me was the recent bow trend. I included two sewn-on bows that I created and a fairly large piece of fabric that had bows printed on it. Lastly, I was inspired by my own style. I change what I like to wear very often. I go through phases where skirts, cute sweaters, and ribbons are the only thing I want to wear. And other times, I can’t imagine wearing anything but pants, beanies, and oversized shirts. That’s why I chose to stick with the colors blue and pink, colors that are often gendered (similar to how those two styles may seem gendered as well.)
I would like my audience to look at my piece and think “huh.” I want the audience to wonder why a bow is made with plaid fabric and why the bow fabric has rigid edges. Why are there so many different scraps on here? And why didn’t I go with something more predictable like a checkerboard pattern?
I learned that everything that takes two hands to make has intention in it. Before, quilts were boring to me. They reminded me of the old lady I used to dog sit for. But now I realize how much work and thought is being put into the patterns they choose, which sewing style they use to mend it all, etc. I think you can see the thoughtfulness in my work with the choices I made. I chose to keep rigid edges and I chose to cut things in particular ways, I spent hours sewing and resewing and picking out different threads.