Why make quilts?

Why make more quilts while you already have many piled up in the closet (or literally everywhere around the house) ?

Why make quilts while you can buy them for much cheaper?

Why make quilts?

I am reminded to find my why as I find myself trying to refocus for this second half-year. So I thought I might just write it up as a reminder to myself and to share with you the why behind the quilts.

There are affiliate links within this post for your convenience. Please find my full disclosure here. 

Answer #1 : Creative desire

The art of making a quilt feeds my creativity needs. I think this is what sparked the beginning of my quilting journey. I have always been creative and a maker all my life. Falling in love into quilting was simply easy as fabrics, sewing machine and I was already best friends.

In (One of my favourite book), Dr Christiane mentioned how important it is for a woman to feed her creative needs in order to become a healthy wellbeing. I am totally on board with this idea. Creative needs are there in order to bring JOY and the feel of accomplishment. And if it makes you a healthier person — that is a MUST isn’t??

Answer #2 :For the JOY they bring

The whole process of making a quilt from buying, selecting fabrics to binding and displaying the quilts brings JOY to my life. I get giddy when I go shopping for fabrics, it excites me to see a fabric post in the mail. I love fabrics, and I see potentials in them. Dreams and possibilities. I display fabrics in my sewing room and they bring me JOY.

I have fun selecting fabrics for a certain quilt project. A patchwork quilt allows you to choose a combination of fabrics in different colours and prints. This process is fun for me. I love mixing different fabrics from different designers and manufacturers but sometime I love keeping them all together in one quilt. Either way, I let my feelings choose and I choose whichever brings me joy at that time.

Sewing up and making a quilt comes together is fun. Watching someone make a quilt is also fun (hence I love watching Angela makes her quilt from start to finish in one video!)

They Joy of giving a quilt is another thing. A new baby? oooo Yes, a quilt for a new baby is so much fun to make and gift! Now that I have way too many quilts to keep, I mostly gift my quilts. There is JOY when I see my quilts get used in other people’s home.

See baby quilts I made here, here, and here.

Answer #3 : For the lesson to be learned

Life requires constant learning. A learning process creates joy, happiness and satisfaction. Being involved in this quilting world makes me a constant student. Learning all kinds of technique from time to time. Learning from mistakes, try and errors. They are lessons from each projects I make that taught me something new, that brushes up my skills and that made me a better me. A better quilter, a better maker.

Here is one of my early quilts – created for my husband, I learned how to make quilts from a Jelly Roll from the book . I also learned how to use the Aphabets stitches on my sewing machine.

Answer #4: For the therapeutic session

Slicing fabrics and piecing it back together is therapeutic. A simple process that sometimes can be mindless especially piecing scraps together. It can be very therapeutic. Bringing me in my own world, letting me forget the stresses of work or things that goes around in life. I find that I can ease myself into sewing and just have a time that I shall forget about other things (most of the time this stressful thing is called laundry :))

Whatever it is, I find myself getting calm after a block is finished despite all the other 1000 things that I was overwhelmed by. After getting that block all pressed, I was calm and ready to get back to real life. Funny but it’s true.

My scrappy trip along quilt story is here if you want to read more.

Answer #5: For the time and memories they create

Quilts are like a time capsule. Sometime I look at my quilts, pat them and memories come to the place where I made them. To the time when I made them. They bring that joyful feeling again, that satisfaction feeling again. They sometime reminds you of the weather, the smell, the things that happened when they were in the making.

[bctt tweet=”Quilts are like a time capsule” username=”amira_lilmushroomcap”]

Blogging about them reinforce these memories. That is why I love to blog about them too. Blogging about them reminds me the places I go to take photos of these quilts. They are beautiful memories. Often time I take my quilts to holidays with us and looking at these quilts or the photos of them reminds me of the beautiful memories we had during that holiday.

I took this quilt photo while I was in Kangaroo Valley. We stayed at a farm surrounded by beautiful mountains and gorgeous scenery.

If you are looking for a retreat, try airbnb and search for farmstay. I booked mine through airbnb and totally recommend it. If you have never used airbnb before, use my links to get $40 off your first booking. That is a lot of saving!!

This farmstay I stayed at was called the Cedars Cottage in Kangaroo valley NSW Australia.

Whenever I look at this quilt in real life, I was reminded about that beautiful place and they become a wonderful memories to recall.

Whenever I look at this very same quilt, I was reminded how creative is my dear friend, Crystal of Raspberry Spool – who created the pattern for the quilt. I remember how fun it was quilting with the others at the time during the sew-along. The joy of sewing with a community.

See more of the work in progress here, here and here.

I also took this quilt to the quilt show I hung this up. So, whenever I look at this quilt, I remembered it hanging at the quilt show. I remembered doing the final snipping off the threads. I remembered hustling to get the quilt done just in time – ehem, hence the thread trimming was done last minute while the quilt is hanging.

Photo Credit to RaspberrySpool Instagram

How is that as a time capsule? See how this very one quilts can bring my memories to several occasion?

Conclusion

With all that written here, I was reminded why I make quilt.

For all these reasons, I will keep on making quilts, even if my house is scattered with quilts.

Actually, I think that last reason itself is enough to justify WHY I MAKE QUILTS don’t you think?

Why do YOU make quilts?

If you are not a quilter yet, are you interested to make one now? I hope you are…. 🙂

Share with me by replying in the comment, I’d love to hear about it.

If you make quilts and would love others to make quilts too, let’s spread quilt love by pinning this to your pin board!