AQS On Point March Survey

The AQS OnPoint - Your Ultimate Quilting Resource recent survey asked quilters about how they learned to quilt. The survey gave the results in the expected fashion; so many percent did it this way and so many percent did it that way, until the final question: What was the most valuable tip or lesson you learned quilting?

They published all 809 answers as written.

I read them all.  

One point that some agreed on was "There are no rules in quilting." The other 99%  gave a rule, or rules, they had learned.

It is true that quilting is a means of creative expression. It is also true that creative expression can be called art. Yet another great truth is that "You will never be an artist as long as you see through the eyes of other men." Is the logical conclusion: there are no rules (imposed by others)?

Perhaps, but everything worthwhile, even art, has a methodology.

A painter of oils knows to not thin his paint with water.

I love to learn, and have all my life, going back to the days on the desert ranch when the only source, outside the classroom, was the mailman's delivery of magazines and books. Therefore, I buy books. Recently I was able to get a book from 30 years ago that I had given away, not realizing, at the time, the significance of that particular book. Getting this book gave me the opportunity to compare it with all the other books on quilting I had acquired in the past 10 years. Each segment of the old book covered almost the entirety of any new book. The only other book that made the old book complete was a very small booklet by Billie Lauder aka Stephanie Kleinman that gave "new" tips and tricks to make the job easier. 

The thought occurred to me that back in 1988, the date the old book was published, the focus was on gathering, sharing and teaching. It seems that in 2017 the focus is on "selling."
( And yes, I paid money for the book.)

Harriet has a thread available only through her; Jan has a ruler only she can provide; and if you want to make this quilt...you know what I mean. I fell in love with the quilts of Willyne Hammerstein, and spent around $150 before ever cutting into a piece of fabric. That quilt, while quite an adventure, is still unfinished. Is the temptation to do things "the easy way" so strong that we lose the whole point of creativity? Do we really need a template to cut a 3" square, and another for a 2" square? Paula Nadelstern does not sell her quilts. When asked how long a quilt takes her, the reply is "All my life." Her classes are costly. That is because her time is exceedingly valuable. She has explained that endless duplication of her art would somehow destroy the value of it. How does someone so mortal become so wise?

As long as we persist in looking outside ourselves for our own unique beauty, we will see only shadows and vague reflections of what might have been. The sorrow of death is not the loss of what we have had, but that which, with death, will never be.