The Need for Slow Quilting

The Citrus Quilt Fall 2011

There is the slow food movement. It inspires us to think about our food, prepare our dinner, enjoy our meal. It makes food into something that requires care and attention, where part of the value is created in the process.

I believe there should be a movement for slow quilting, where care and attention is paid to each piece. Let's do hand sewing. Let's design our own patterns. Let's make something that really pleases us. And after this is all done, let's start something new from what we have learned.

It seems to me that many quilting magazines advertize Quick Quilts. These are projects that can be finished in a day of work. Unless you are selling them, or you are very, very cold, you do not need to finish a quilt in a weekend.

Instead, let's make really tricky quilts that will take a year to complete. If I've got another 50 years in me (maybe I do, maybe I don't), I will still have an insane closet full of completed quilts. But they will be very complicated quilts. And I hope very beautiful.

So let's slow down. Work slowly with passion. Make something beautiful. Challenge ourselves. Reduce clutter. Conserve our resources. Exercise our creativity.

Let's try Slow Quilting.