We asked you why you fell in love with quilting and after sorting through the results we were inspired to share 20 ways to rekindle your love of quilting. Be inspired by quilters all over the world and fall in love with quilting again!
- Connect to the past. Need a little inspiration? Grab an old quilt and imagine all the people who made this quilt possible, the baby clothes snipped into squares and stitched in, the hands that lovingly pieced and quilted, the scraps gathered and shared from one family to another.
- Inspired by yesterday. Crack open a book of antique quilts and image making it with a yardstick and a pair of scissors!
- Heritage. Is quilting in your blood? Plan a heritage project celebrating the quilters in your family.
- A new challenge. Try something you’ve never done before. Piece a painting, fold some fabric into little flowers, learn to dye fabric…
- Creativity! Creativity! Creativity! This was the number one reason quilters love quilting! Let’s be creative!
- Look at quilts. How many Pinterest boards do you have for quilts? Quilts you want to try, quilts of beauty, insane quilts, tiny quilts, quilts you’ve made…make a new board and be inspired!
- Go fish! Have you ever played Go Fish? Here’s a twist on an old favorite. Call up a quilting friend and ask them for a fabric, that red and white polka dot that will be perfect in your next project. If they can’t find it in their stash, they have to go fish – phone a friend until someone has it in their stash! Quilters love to play in their fabric stashes!
- Color! Oh we love color!
- Beginning and ending. Celebrate at the beginning of a quilt and at the end. Create a personal ritual for the making of a quilt!
- Need a quilting boost? Grab a quilt out of your collection, find a stranger, and give it away. There’s nothing like sharing the love of quilting by sharing love with quilts!
- Open the windows while you sew or sew outside. Parts of the creating process are meditative, invite the sounds of outside into your rhythm.
- Quilt buddies! Make a new quilting friend.
- Geometry – yes a lot of you are inspired and love quilting because of the math! Kiss a ruler and sing the times tables!
- Quilt fiction. Curl up with a good quilting story.
- Teach a little one to sew. The survey says: sewing leads to quilting!
- Legacy. Give quilts to your children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren, nieces and nephews, and the loved ones in your life. Wrap future generations in your handiwork.
- Say it in stitches! Use quilting to give the artist in you a voice!
- Make the impossible – defy the rules!
- Go to a quilt shop and breath in the quilting majesty!
- Go to a quilt show. Write down the names of your favorite quilts and quilters. When you get home, write them a note letting them know how much you loved their quilt and why. Share your love of quilting!
Share your love of quilting with quilters like you on our AQS Quilting Project Parade Facebook Group.
For quilt fiction, I HIGHLY recommend the works of Isabella Alan and Earlene Fowler. Isabella Alan writes about Amish country in Ohio and a woman who returns there when she inherits a quilt shop left to her by her aunt. Murder follows plus a developing romance with the investigating sheriff. Earlene Fowler’s series is set in the central coast of California where a young widow manages to find employment as the curator of a quilt museum. Benni Harper, the young widow, solves murders and encounters romance in this extremely well-written series.
My quilting novelist of choice is Marie Bostwick. She has the Cobbled Court Series and A Too Much Texas Series. She also writes historical novels.
I was blessed to attend a Cobbled Court quilt retreat – where she gave us a tour of the small town that inspired those stories, and ate an incredible lunch at the restaurant of one of her regular characters. The rest of the weekend was sewing, visiting quilt shops, and drinking wine. She quilts beautifully.
During the Pandemic I have done so many quilts. I have made so many for family. First I bought material for special designs, then I used all my scraps to make scrap quilts. You can make scrap quilts any direction and design you wish. Keep quilting it keeps your mind busy and even makes you have something to be excited about doing. If you are trapped in use quilting to get away.