Tough Titties (a quilt)

I entered three quilts in QuiltCon, and I was really stoked that one was juried into the QuiltCon exhibition.  I hadn't share the quilt online previously, because I originally made it (together with my sister) for the New Zealand quilting symposium, which required that it not have been published before.  It was one of a very few quilts which were rejected from Symposium, which meant I was a bit surprised when it was accepted into QuiltCon (which was MUCH more selective in terms of quilts entered compared to quilts accepted). 

This is my quilt hanging in the QuiltCon show.  It seems right to be sharing it on what will still be International Women's Day for many people, since it's a quilt with a feminist bent.

I have to confess that I'm a little bit nervous about sharing this quilt here.  I try to keep the blog a nice happy place for sharing quilts and quilting techniques.  However, quilts are one of the ways I express myself, and this quilt reflects my thoughts from a time when I was thinking a lot about feminism (something I think about more or less depending on what is happening in my life and in the news).

This is the description I gave for this quilt when I entered it in QuiltCon:

The quilting on this quilt recounts anecdotes of subtle but infuriating instances of every day sexism.  

"Tough Titties" is a reference to the way this kind of discrimination is often dismissed and women are made to feel that they should just harden up and get over it.  Don't miss the hand printed fabric on the back!

This quilt is a collaboration between me and my sister (who is not a quilter, but who is a feminist).  She carved a stamp (out of a potato, no less) and used it to stamp the fabric used for the backing of the quilt.  I did the appliqué and the quilting, and most of the binding (but I did insist that my sister hand-stitch one side of the binding so that she had a hand in the construction of the quilt).  The words on the quilt come from experiences we've had, and a couple of anecdotes contributed by friends.

In construction, this quilt is pretty simple.  I appliquéd the words "Tough Titties" to a plain linen background, using the blanket stitch on my sewing machine.  I traced the capitalised letters from my own handwriting, because I felt a bit funny about using someone else's font for this quilt.

The quilting was done free-hand.  I experimented with marking the letters on fabric and then quilting over the marked lines, but found that I was happier with the result when I just stitched freehand.  I did mark some lines using my hera marker so that my writing didn't slope all over the place.  I used a heavier than normal thread, 28 weight Aurifil in my favourite colour 2021, on the front of the quilt, and my usual Aurifil 50 weight 2021 on the back.  I kept the thread colour quite similar to the fabric I was quilting on, so that people would have to get close to the quilt to read the words.

One of the cool things about showing at QuiltCon is that you get feedback from the judges.  I was really pleased with the feedback on Tough Titties - the judges commented favourably on the craftsmanship of the quilt and suggested that the collaboration could be enhanced by creating a custom fabric for the appliqué as well as for the backing.  I think that's a great idea and I'm going to try it with the next similar quilt I make.  I definitely want to repeat the technique of quilting words on a quilt.  In a happy turn of events, I didn't bring Tough Titties home with me from QuiltCon.  It now lives with Gillian, and she apparently is going to hang it in her office which I think is seriously awesome.

So yeah, that's the quilt I had in the QuiltCon exhibition.  It didn't win any prizes, but it was a thrill just to have a quilt in the show.  It's pretty different from many of my other quilts, and I guess one of the things I've taken away from QuiltCon is that I'm still happy making a variety of quilts in different styles depending on what suits my mood at the time.

Handmade: Stamp carving

This weekend I took a class at Handmade, an annual Wellington event where you can learn and do all kinds of crafty things.  I decided to try something outside my existing range of craft skills and took a class called Hand Carved Rubber Stamps and Printing, taught by Melissa Wastney (who blogs at Tiny Happy).

 

The concept is quite simple really - you take a rubber eraser and some kind of carving tool (I used a little set of wood carving tools but you can also use a lino cutter) and create your very own stamp.

 

I had a think before the class about the kind of stamps I might like to make.  My drawing skills are minimal at best so I was trying to come up with simple shapes that I can actually draw.  I got the idea of creating a two piece stamp from a new design, "Flight", which Leslie Keating from maze and vale posted on instagram last week, and I guess the winter weather inspired the clouds and the rain.

 

The cat stamp was something that of course I had to try out.  I think it turned out quite cute, like a funny little cat polka dot.

Overall I really enjoyed this class - we didn't have too much to cover in the time available, and Melissa was a great teacher with a lovely calm and encouraging manner.  It was fantastic to see what everyone else in the class was doing as well - people came up with some amazing designs and my favourites were not necessarily the most complicated.  

I'd like to play around with stamp carving and printing some more, and since I bought about a dozen erasers and only used 4 in class I've got plenty of material to work with!  Have you ever tried making your own stamps?