Hello Isabel -- I'm glad to talk with you off-line as well. In my college career I was able to write pretty much any paper given to me on some aspect of quilting or cotton production. I am not the only person who believes the desire for the miracle fiber of cotton is what drove the industrial age and has a lot to do with things such as western colonization and slavery. Quilting itself as a feminist expression/experience. Project scale, schedule and design considerations in terms or art or geometry or process. It goes on and on!
I describe myself as a post-hippy (I'm that 70s Show Generation pretty much perfectly), born in 1960. The Bicentennial (1976) years brought out a bunch of interest in quilts and traditional crafts. I grew up reading Laura Ingalls Wilder and the Little House books (she made quilts... and maybe that is what gave me, a little girl the idea that I could make quilts), I crafted in Camp Fire Girls and Girl Scouts. And although I don't have a family tradition of quilts, decided as a senior in high school that I wanted to make a quilt to take with me to college. While that alone is a rather bland statement, the reality was I was leaving home at 17 with all my possessions in two suitcases, a quilt was an important item for me to start my life. I say that the only constants in my life have been music and quilting and I had music first but not by much. Or that I've never been quite sure if I am and so therefore I quilt, or the other way around.
I like to sew or play with fabric a bit each day. I love textiles and did quite a bit of costuming and garment construction at one point, but about 10-15 years ago decided to "just quilt". The fabric time is a bit like meditation, I sort through my thoughts and issues as the fabric is going beneath my hands and the machine purrs along.
For me a quilt is a physical item of comfort. It is something I can wrap around myself when no one else is there. The quilts I make are physical expressions of my inner art/self and are made/given as acts of love but ultimately -- it's a blanket. I do not sell my quilts, others do and that is perfectly ok. We each do our thing.
My thing is machine sewn, machine quilted and machine washable. Specifically, what I did for a long time is best described as contemporary adaptations of traditional patterns using modern fabrics and construction techniques. Then I embraced the term scrap quilter. Now, I'm realizing that I'm doing less traditional designs and more modern techniques and am not dealing so much in terms of scrap as collections. Some of this is due to progressive vision issues. I simply don't see as well as I once did and I believe my best work is mostly behind me but I still have years ahead of me.
I used to finish every project. Never had a UFO. With my vision issues I am feeling the pressure of time and that I won't always be able to do what I like most, and that is the planning and the piecing. Just don't enjoy the quilting that much and frankly -- it's not my strong point. So I have been amassing a number of completed tops that aren't quite quilts yet.
There are many definitions and terms and subgenres, but for me, to be a quilt is to be a useful item, a craft and not an art. We can use art principles, we can do all sorts of stuff, but as my former tagline used to say "If you can't wrap a sick baby in it, it's not a guilt". I have no problems at all with the glorious work other people do, or textile arts or many other things. But ultimately, if you can't/aren't allowed to use it, it may indeed be made of three layers, but it still isn't a quilt in my terms.
I believe that quilters as a whole are some of the best people I've ever known. Unfortunately, the "quilt police" do live among us and some of them are amazing downers. I was self-taught, I questioned why things were done. Quilt police have high standards and no questions. Nothing wrong with high standards for yourself
it's just the rest of us may share some different ideas of what is reasonable without going into right or wrong. I almost always press my seams open -- the quilt police think this is wrong. I have reasons why. They still think I'm wrong. I have quilts with open seams that have been in use and machine washed for 40 years. They still think I'm wrong.
So the reality is that if you wish to show a quilt in competition, like everything else there are rules and standards to follow. We have some things expected of us like continuous mitered binding -- but we don't have to and not every quilt has to be a competition quilt. I spent my first 20 years of quilting being very precise in my quilting -- cutting, piecing all that, precision in the process was the key. Then again -- I worked with engineers.
For the last 20 years I've been going with the idea that my desired result is the key, and now for the most part I cut large and trim down -- 20 years ago you would have gotten an audible sniff from me (almost quilt police myself!) on "fabric wasteful" techniques. Then again -- I'm dealing with vision issues.