A Story About Friends and Fabric

​Once upon a time when I owned a quilt shop, (15 years ago now since I left Material Obsession - omg, really?So this is I think 18 or 19 years ago? Maybe 20?), I used to work a lot of afternoons, because my boys were little and at daycare, so I could pick them up later. Kathy's were older and needed to be picked up from primary school, so she would leave early and I would close.

Many afternoons the same customer would stop in around the same time, a lovely French girl named Florence. We used to have great chats, and sometimes a cup of tea, as you often do when you own a quilt store - you hear everything about people's kids, the quilts they are working on, what they did on the weekend. As we got to know each other over several months, I discovered that Flo was stopping in at the shop so regularly because it was on the way home from the hospital. Her husband, Anthony, was dying of a brain tumour. The quilt shop was a respite, a slight brain refresh before she had to go and deal with the day to day realities of her three young kids, her in-laws and life in general, while this awful, awful thing was happening.

It was early days in the shop, and one of my first insights into how important a quilt shop (and a quilt designer) can be to people when things are hard in other parts of your life. Over the years of shop owning, teaching and designing I have heard so many heart felt stories of the quilts people have made for different reasons, and for joy or for solace in different situations. Weddings, funerals. Loved one's illnesses, or exciting milestones. New babies. Grown babies leaving home. A much loved dog was buried wrapped in a special quilt we made in class. So many quilts made using clothing from friends or family long gone, quilts made using old baby clothes. Memories from pieces of fabric, where they were bought or which friend gave them. Quilts hold so much of us, because we make them with our hands but also with our hearts. I'm always so honoured when someone tells me they chose my design for a special quilt, or when they take me aside in class, or seek me out at a show or online to tell me the story of what my quilting means to them. Some days my job is a job, but some days it's an absolute privilege. 

I feel exactly the same way about my quilting by the way - its not unique to "customers"!! When I'm sad, I sew. When I'm happy, I sew. Sewing gives me joy, it allows me to lose myself in the moment and clear my head of all the noise from other problems. Designing especially does that for me - when I can totally immerse myself in a twisty design issue or brand new project, hours and hours can pass without my even realising. Every single one of my quilts has a story - some of them are incredibly personal and private. You would never know to look at them, the feelings they hold. We as makers are so, so lucky to have a love of something so precious, not to mention so useful!

Anyway, I digress. I'm introducing you to Flo not because of the circumstances behind her shop visits, but rather so that you know who she is to me when we get to the actual purpose of the post!

Over the years, through her husband's illness and his passing, Flo and I got to be very good friends, and she eventually came to work at Material Obsession - famously lending a fancy French flavour to our little Aussie quilt store. As she's reading this she will be rolling her eyes as she's heard me tell the story so many times  - but we used to LOVE making her answer phone calls.

"'ello? Materrial Obsessionh? Yees... yees we 'ave 'exagons? We are in 'Unters 'Ill?" (Hunters Hill) 

Hahahaha. I used to love it. Lucky she still loves me :D

When I left Material Obsession quite a few staff and friends were unfortunately made to "choose sides" (NOT by me I hasten to add!!!), and I am eternally grateful that Flo (and my beautiful friend Erica, too) "chose" me. We have had many many hours over the intervening years of sewing, excursions to museums, shopping trips and listening to each other's disasters. We had a few days in Paris together last year, and we're doing it again in October! 

One day we will tour the UK together, finding all the blue plaques and visiting every castle, museum, cathedral and old graveyard. She comes to stay with us for a few days every month or so, and we always have a lot of stitching and laughs and glasses of wine. And after she's cleaned up the kitchen (which she insists on doing), she goes down to the studio and raids my stash and my scrap bin.

At MO, Flo was famous for rustling around in the shop scraps, the little offcut bits left in the bins after a class, and ends of things straightened up off the bolt. She made several whole quilts from the shop scraps!! The two below are examples. 

She doesn't like to follow a pattern (particularly not my patterns, she says they're much too detailed hahaha - um, I thought that was a good thing??) but she has started (and abandoned!) a fair few of my BOM quilts, and she has nearly finished Down the Rabbit Hole. 

She will get that one done, because its being given to her daughter when she moves out of home. It's taken a while, and also a lot of strongly worded texts about how she "isn't doing xx part" because she's lost patience. 

Now don't get me wrong, she's not finishing them because she's stubborn and easily distracted by the next project (aren't we all? Squirrel!!), not because she isn't a VERY VERY talented stitcher of all kinds. She just mostly likes to yank my chain I think. And she doesn't like being told what to do :D To illustrate her cleverness, heres a few other quilts she's whipped up over the years...

I especially love this one she finished recently, which has a lot of Anthony's old shirts in it. 

If that's not enough to convince you of her superior stitching skills, here's a couple of little bits and pieces she threw together last year. Flo and I are very alike - when she's into something, she researches it to death. She decided last year that she would like to make a blouse using old Romanian techniques, construction and embroidery. So she didn't just make one, she made TWO. These are both entirely hand stitched and designed by Flo (after much research) - yep,, totally by hand, including the smocking, and the seams. She even made the tassel. 

And now we get to the actual subject of this post! A month or two ago, she decided to make a scrap quilt using orphan blocks and stuff cluttering the scrap bin up. She decided to just stitch bits together into panels (the best way to approach a scrap quilt IMO), until she had straight pieces that could be sewn together. 

The top is nearly finished. She's decided its too long and not wide enough, so she's started sewing some long panels of hexagons ('exagons, hahahaha) together to run along both side borders. She brought the top with her this past weekend so we could see where she's up to.

I had a lovely time searching out and finding all the bits from my scrap bin! There's some of my own fabrics in there - ones I designed for Windham and Lecien. There's a block of her abandoned Secret Garden quilt, and lots of fabrics she's snaffled from my scrap bin. There's orphan blocks and scrap fabrics of her own, and while she was here this weekend she found in my bin some more orphan blocks and sample pieces for Słodki that will be worked in as well. The quilt is full of stories of the pieces it contains, where the blocks were made and when, where the fabrics came from. We both had some laughs and a trip down memory lane playing Where's Wally with it. 

And that I suppose is the point of the post. This quilt is like our friendship - all the pieces we have in common, even in a small way, over the years, even if it's just the telling of the story to the other. It's like any long friendship you have with those friends that feel like home. All the bits and pieces, thrown in a blender. I just thought you'd all get a kick out of it. I know I did. 

Sarah xx