To The Nines

Way back a zillion years ago, in 2007 when I was first learning how to make free pieced letters, nobody had made numbers.

I wanted to make a signature panel on a quilt, so I figured out numbers. The numbers above, were my first numbers. In late 2008 and into 2009, I worked on my sampler quilt.

I showed off my "new" numbers in this quilt, Letters From Home, in 2009.

Here's a closeup of the row of numbers on the quilt. These letters are slightly less than 3" tall.

Here's a closeup of the year on the quilt - and yes, it was made in 2009. I haven't had an opportunity to make a number 9 in ten years, so I almost forgot how.

I struggle when folks say/think paper-piecing is the only way to get something "perfect."

Ask my pal Julie about how "casual" my free-pieced quilts are. Answer: Not At All.

My letters look the way I want them to look. Every single aspect of them is planned. After I make a letter or a number, I may not like the way it came out, but that doesn't mean it was an accident. I do a lot  all my designing in my head. I do all my measuring in my head. I measure things visually. I make decisions about what size, thickness, height, whatever, about something WHILE I HAVE THE ROTARY CUTTER IN MY HAND. I do NOT design something on paper first and then make it EXACTLY LIKE HOW I DREW IT.

they look damned perfect, and they are, but these were not paper-pieced.

BUT I COULD IF I WANTED TO, AND I WOULDN'T HAVE TO PAPER PIECE IT!

Maybe it's just because I have a constellation of skills that most quilters don't possess. One of my students said to me once, "you do paper piecing without the paper." Truthfully, I have no idea what that means, because I don't know how to paper-piece (and have no interest in learning).

Paper-piecing is NOT the only way to "perfection."  (And, quite frankly, that's my OTHER objection to paper-piecing: the result is an endless line of absolutely identical cookie-cutter, Stepford Wife look-alikes. I find that kind of "perfection" boring, dull, predictable and lifeless. But that's MY belief and MY opinion. You are entitled to disagree.)

I don't have anything against paper piecing. You ladies love it, knock yourself out! Go to it! Have some fun with it! JUST DON'T SAY THAT MY QUILTS ARE PAPER PIECED. That's the only thing that I object to.

For me, I see paper piecing as a crutch.

And I don't need one.