A Quilt In The Making

My artistic relationship with the arts centre has grown over the last few years and particularly since the arts centre began to host open workshops towards the end of the pandemic in 2021. During that time, I developed a programme of ‘slow stitch and breathe’ workshops where participants could find agency in creating a small hand stitched textile and take time out from their hectic lives. 

Use What You Have

As my artistic practice has evolved over the years, I have become very conscious about the mountains of textile waste produced globally. It’s right I feel a responsibility to think more sustainably about my work, what I produce, and try to re-use or over dye what fabrics I have. (Basically, I never throw anything away!)

That coupled with the simple joyous act of picking up a needle and thread and sewing one piece of cloth to another gave me the idea for ‘A Quilt In The Making’. 

Together

With this commission, the brief was to also connect with groups of people and organisations across Coventry, inviting participants, through a number of workshops, to make small, stitched blocks with fragments of assorted fabric stitched to linen, with which I would then interpret and piece together into a final celebratory quilt. 

With the support of my wonderful textile assistant Julie Joannides, this was a powerful experience – to spend time talking, sharing stories, sewing and making textile pieces with so many wonderful people at places like Kairos - Women Working Together, Canley Community Centre (Chit Chat Group), George Eliot Hospital (Intensive Care Nurses and Staff), and Foleshill Women’s Training, as well as with students and staff at the Arts Centre and University of Warwick. 

Many of the participants had never stitched before and were at first doubtful about their making abilities. I emphasised that by using a simple running stitch they could begin to learn to hand sew, and perhaps, as well as making a small contributing piece for the arts centre quilt, by using the same technique, they would soon be able to patch and mend clothes or begin a handmade quilt in the future! 

I also reiterated that their stitches didn’t need to be straight, that wonky was good, in fact VERY good and that anything they didn’t like could easily be unpicked and begun again! 

It seemed that by removing ‘technical’ barriers, people relaxed more and eased into the sewing process with less fear of making mistakes. I think that if you are working with others, especially where there is a new skill to be offered, then there also needs to be room for freedom of expression, uninhibited from too much ‘proper’ restriction. 

Piece By Piece

After working with nearly 200 people over the spring and summer months, in September, I tipped out a bag full of sewn fabric pieces on to the floor in my studio. All I had to do now was hand stitch them together to make the quilt! 

It’s been fascinating to regard the characteristics of each of the stitchers quilt blocks. Their marks on cloth. Stitches large and small, random colours of connecting thread, gorgeous choices of snippets of cloth previously earmarked for landfill, including vintage scraps from the 1950s, found cotton pieces, tactile corduroys, shiny satins and discarded silk scarves - all chosen in a moment and now ‘seamed’ together by me to make this whole united cloth. 

It’s been a privilege to stitch with the people who contributed to A Quilt In The Making and to spend my hours interpreting and creatively stitching everything together. I hope you get time to see the quilt, to pause and view each of the wonderful blocks. There will be some wonky quilt lines and some patches over patches…but that’s just as it should be!

Quilt Commission Launch and Artist Talk  

Sat 2 Nov, 1:30 – 3:30pm

Join us for the launch of our new community quilt commission to celebrate the power of collaboration and our 50th anniversary. Artist Julia O’Connell will give a talk with our Director Doreen Foster at 2pm. No need to book, just drop in! Find out more here.