Folks, if I've learned anything from touring the blogs in the Quilt Festival, it is that I'm out of touch with the quilting world. It has rocketed its merry way along one orbit while I've been putzing with yarn elsewhere. The last all-out quilt I worked on was a Sunbonnet Sue variation that featured vintage Sue blocks and 1930s repro fabrics I'd had in my stash for an age.
At that time, I was intimately familiar with the terms Fat Quarter and Charm Pack. I'd just heard of Jelly Rolls but was not interested in buying them when I could whip out the equivalent number of fabric strips from my overgrown stash.
But Layer Cakes, Turnovers, and Honey Buns? They sound like reasons one would develop a fat quarter. I had to google them to find this explanation. Schnibbles has evidently become a commercial label for a kind of wall quilt that can be made from two charm packs.
And the fashion of quilting has changed while I've been on hiatus. Many modern quilts feature more unprinted fabrics and almost primitive piecing designs. The favored fabric prints du jour seem to be large, simple graphics reminiscent of the late 1950s to early 1960s. I could be off by a decade--1960s to 70s--but I try to forget the patterns of the 70s. It was traumatic enough wearing those prints as a child, thanks so much. (Nowadays, I'm not sure I could bring myself to lay out money to take them home.)
I find I continue to gravitate to scrap quilts, and piecing or applique designs that let the eye move along the surface when it's got nothing better to do. (My standard for an interesting quilt is still one that could keep a mind busy while the body is sick in bed and the tv is out in the livingroom.) These two joys are my goals when I make a quilt. They're why I began quilting almost 21 years ago and why I am thinking of starting it up again. I'm already brewing an idea for a bed quilt, and it involves using applique pieces my grandma cut out decades ago…in 1950s/60s prints, no less. At least they're not from the 70s.
Very good written! I, too, am not so fond of quilts that are made from one fabric line, and am not a fan of jelly rolls and co. The more different fabrics, the better. Scrap quilts are my favorites. And your butterfly quilt is very pretty! Keep quilting like you want! ;-)
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