Hello! My name is Crystal and I normally blog my sewing misadventures over at
Sonnet of the Moon.
Aesthetically I’m drawn to today’s modern quilts. Lots of white, colors that
pop, improvisational, wonky. When I flip through pictures of quilts, the
bam, in your face modern quilts are always my favorites.

Emotionally, though, I’m drawn to traditional quilts. I like to think about the people who made them, why they made them, who they made them for. I imagine women swapping ideas for blocks, trading scraps of fabric, sewing by hand, by candlelight. I think of the rich history, the memories in each scrap of fabric. Who was the first person to create a nine-patch? A log cabin? Who first thought hexagons were worth all that trouble? Were they as obsessed with them as I am?

Unfortunately, as much as I love the
idea of traditional quilt blocks, I don’t like them very much. Modern quilts are so fresh and fun, traditional quilts are bland and boring.
At least that’s what I thought when Jen approached me with her idea for this project. I was pretty convinced that there was no way to make traditional quilt blocks modern or interesting.
But then the rebellious side of my personality kicked in. Surely there must be a way to give traditional blocks some modern appeal. There has to be a way to make a sampler quilt look good. There has to be a way to modify tradition without changing it beyond recognition.
So that’s the challenge I set for myself and that’s my goal in this project. I look forward to thinking about the history of quilting while making my traditional blocks. I look forward to picking bright, beautiful fabrics to compliment the block designs. I look forward to making a sampler quilt I don’t hate.
Maybe I can do all this and maybe I can’t…but at least I’m going to try. Hopefully you’ll want to give it a try too.