So, QuiltCon is over. It came and went in a flash, but since I returned home I've found my heart happy with quilting and my brain full of ideas.
Quilting is an activity that lots of people participate in. So on the level of joining layers of fabric together, I relate to lots of people - like 20 million or something. Clearly quilting is more than just sewing fabric together. It's about fabric. And fabric is about color, pattern, texture, balance, reaching off the shelves and saying "buy me now, or else." Then, you take those yummy morsels of woven glory and stitch them together in a way that makes the fabric itself infinitely more amazing. When you boil it down to this, then it really becomes about taste.
The inner Vermonter in me wants to embrace all quilters and to a point I do. I have learned a lot over the years from quilters who I do not identify with aesthetically. They have the skillz and usually I have developed some backwards way of doing something easy. I have also spent time around people who have a deeply seeded respect for quilts - from a long time ago - but they don't have a love affair with actually making quilts.
All of this has both strengthened my respect for quilting and frustrated me to no end because sometimes you just want to be around people who love, love, love what you are making. You want to be around quilts and quilters who give you ideas, challenge your vision, and share their stash (hehehe).
So, while I want to continue to keep my eyes and ears open to the quiltmaking tradition as it exists in history as well as the variety of different sorts of quilting today (ie. stuff I like and stuff I hate), QuiltCon was like the stars aligned and all the people who I really relate to when it comes to quilting were in the same room. Yeah, mind blowing.
QuiltCon was the perfect medley of everything that I like to think exists in quiltmaking coming together and being amazing for four days. Modern quilting is a type of quilt, but it's also a type of person and seeing all those people taking in the quilts, buying fabric, rocking their 80s gear, getting craft tattoos and motivating each other to keep on keeping on was totally great.
*I took like four pictures at QuiltCon. Oops.
