It’s hard to believe there are only 3 more days left in 2013! As this year winds down and we prepare for 2014, many folks are preparing their new year’s resolutions–those things we plan (or hope!) to do in the new year. Today’s Q.S.O.S. Spotlight is shining on quilter Jan Wildman’s interview, conducted 13 years ago in Houston, Texas. Jan’s touchstone quilt was a “resolution quilt” featuring her wishes for the new year. Jan shared her resolutions and the background of the quilt with interviewer Jana Hawley:
“I’ve brought this quilt, because it’s kind of special to me, even though I don’t consider it my best quilt. It’s special to me, because I made this quilt instead of making New Year’s resolutions in 1995. I had decided that every year I was making the same resolutions and then breaking them by, probably the end of January. So I saw this flying pig’s fabric, and it reminded me of the expression ‘when pigs fly.’ So these are all things in my life that I figured would happen when pigs fly. So I have about nine different centers of blocks, that have different sayings of things that I would like to have happen in my life, but probably aren’t very likely... In the top block it says ‘Enjoy exercising.‘ The next one is ‘Keep the house clean’ and then the next one is ‘Finish more quilts.‘ And those are all kind of self-explanatory. Then in the next row I have ‘Lose weight‘ and above it in little letters it says ‘If only it were as easy to lose, as my mind.’ I guess that’s rather self explanatory. In the middle of the quilt there’s a block that says ‘Cherish the miracles,’ and it has sea turtles on it. There’s a story behind that that I can tell a little later. And then there is ‘Remember birthdays and anniversaries‘ which I am absolutely horrible about, still. And then on the bottom row there is ‘Use more fabric than I buy,‘ another when pigs fly pipe dream there. [chuckles.] ‘”Cook nutritious meals for my family,’ and then the final one is ‘Have more time to rest, relax, think and dream.‘ And of all of the nine, that’s the one that I’ve gotten closest to doing. [laughs.]
[…] I think one thing about doing this for me, when I made it, it was kind of nice to get rid of the guilt of making new year’s resolutions each year, and I’m pleased that I no longer do that, because I did always feel guilt over them and now, I kind of, when everybody else is saying they’re making them, I just kind of laugh about that. I think you can make resolutions any time during the year, you don’t have to wait till New Year’s, and maybe if you just make one at a time you have a better chance of accomplishing them, than making an entire list. I think that’s what it’s done for me.”
Check out Jan’s interview on the Q.S.O.S. page to read about the special sea turtle block she made as a reminder to cherish miracles in her interview on the Quilt Alliance site. You can always read more quilt stories on the Quilters’ S.O.S.- Save Our Stories page, too!
Posted by Emma Parker
Project Manager, Quilters’ S.O.S.- Save Our Stories
qsos@quiltalliance.org
“It was the Alabama State Gee’s Bend exhibition and I loved one work very much. [
“Okay, the quilt I have with me today is called “Denim Quilt” and it’s the first quilt that I ever completed that I felt really satisfied with–it was a two year project. I started it in 1970 and finished it in ’72. It got much bigger than I thought it would be when I started, which has been an ongoing problem for me. Things frequently get bigger than originally planned. It is a collection of mostly worn denim squares cut from jeans. They are decorated with embroidery and appliqué that’s hand done as well as with commercial company patches, Army patches, Girl Scout patches, a really wide range of designs. There are 396 squares of denim, each four inches and the designs on them are all different. The idea for the quilt came from a quilt that my great-aunt made. She saw directions for making such a quilt in a Woman’s Day Magazine in the early seventies, I believe. And on a visit to Minnesota, I saw the quilt that she had made, where the designs on each square were much simpler, and I thought that this would be a really fun project. I had always been very interested in quilts and I think I had started some piecework that I had never finished of traditional designs, but the image of this quilt really fascinated me. Every square was different and that collage kind of aesthetic had always interested me. It was an easy project to work on a little bit at a time. I was a high school student at the time. All of the edges of the squares are turned back and crocheted with red crochet cotton and into that crochet is black crochet cotton, and then those edges are sewn together. Over a two year period of time I collected patches from places that I visited. I embroidered things. I appliquéd the whole alphabet. I embroidered the signs of the zodiac.
Quilt Alliance 