If you’d like a guide in making a quilt, let me introduce you to “atree3”, (Margaret Fabrizio) a fascinating woman with a passion for quiltmaking and a sense of verve about living life.  Lesson one: a couple of minutes with a camera moving about a bit much, but persevere – or jump to next video – it gets better.

(This covers the first 3 days of the quilt… deciding what to aim for, which fabrics to use…)

Next, in video 2, with calming camerawork, 2 minutes of deciding to just go freeform, like the quilts of Gee’s Bend (sewn from fabric scraps).  The quilting fabrics are being pinned up on a bedsheet on the wall – like a canvas for an artist – to try different layouts.

As you follow the videos by number, atree3 talks you through her making process, commenting to the followers of her vlog.  All sorts of questions crop up, such as finishing a creative project, making choices, technique, life, the universe and everything.

It’s a fascinating journey through one woman making a quilt, over a month.  It’s up to you what you do – either view it all – or somewhere along the line, if it inspires you, dive into a similar project.

At the end, the triumphant unveiling, of the quilt which began from the donation of a pair of boxer shorts with bananas on them!

Takeaway Creative Ideas

There are loads of ideas we can take away and put into our own creative practices and simply do for fun.  Here’s a few which immediately occur to me – but Margaret Fabrizio certainly fizzes with energy and ideas, plenty in her words to inspire new making adventures.

Writing – put together random pieces of cut out words, or write your own and put in unexpected patterns.  Make something small.  Or take a month to make a large project, alongside atree3‘s video series.  Watch a video each day and work from that – they are all short videos.  Is there a subtext to what she’s saying, or words which randomly occur when you see the colours or fabrics or patterns?

Art – collage rough sketches and unfinished pieces of work into a final project – even if it is tiny.  Or, again, do a large one, working on it for a warmup exercise for a month, alongside the videos for inspiration.