The patchwork for a quilted sham, this is a 25” square.

I’ve started quilting, and I can’t stop. I guess that could be the whole post, but I’ll elaborate. I usually start by talking about fabric, but this is a little different. I’ll start with the machine.

I’M A BERNINA BABY:

I became a BERNINA sewing machine ambassador in late 2022. In January 2023, I attended an Ambassador retreat hosted at BERNINA’s Creative Center in Chicago. I didn’t know any of the other Ambassadors, though we all started following each other on Instagram once we learned who else would be representing the brand. (In case you are wondering, the brand is written in all caps.)

Arriving at the retreat on a blustery, cold day, felt like a hug. Here were all these BERNINA employees I had been emailing for months, and rooms full of sewing machines, and even better: rooms full of people who wanted to talk about sewing machines. Like, on a really granular, nerdy level. These were my people!

Most of the other Ambassadors are quilters. Even though I’ve made some quilts, quite a few quilted jackets, and have even worked at a quilt store, it still opened my eyes to the massive, ever expanding world of quilting. Among the group are modern quilters, traditional quilters, fine art quilters, foundation paper piecers, long armers….there are so many categories! I was learning about techniques I didn’t know existed! It was really fun.

HOME IS A PLACE TO PUT YOUR QUILTS:

And then, in May: we bought a house.

I have been absolutely overcome with the desire to decorate our home with as many self made projects as possible. Obviously, we’ve moved a bunch, and we have always lived in smaller apartments. Suddenly, we had a guest bedroom, and not enough bedding. And wouldn’t it be nice to have a quilt on the couch for movie nights? We need throw pillows, why not add some patchwork?

The combination of actually having a need for more blankets and home textiles, and absorbing the visuals of quilting, lead me to want to make one.

EVERYTHING CAME TOGETHER:

The more I followed and engaged with quilting content on social media, the more it was fed to me. And that’s when I decided, you know what? I should make us a King size quilt for our bedroom, to commemorate buying a house. I’d need to make it within our first year of living here. Just flinging myself off the deep end, as one does.

I chose the Archie Quilt from Penelope Handmade and I LOVE IT. I’ve been using my most precious fabrics from stash, including these cottons purchased in Paris over the years since I met Jason (one of them was a souvenir I picked up on our first trip to Paris together, when we’d only known each other about two months.)

It’s a huge project, I still have a ways to go, but I’ve made good progress.

A mix of new, vintage, and deep stash fabrics for my Archie quilt.

PLANNING AND NOT PLANNING:

Part of being a BERNINA Ambassador is writing blog posts on their blog, We All Sew. All of my posts for the year were planned out in January, and suddenly, as the seasons began to change, it was time for my sew-along for a quilted jacket. Since I’ve made them before, it made sense to show some of my favorite tips & tricks on their blog.

So I hit pause on my Archie quilt and switched gears to jackets. I made a whole cloth quilted jacket and wrote my sew-along as I went, taking notes of any special techniques. Then, I made a patchwork version, following the “recipe” I had written with the previous version. I tweaked it further.

All of this is coming soon to their blog! Dates TBA, but I will announce & link it on Instagram and here.

Fully reversible whole cloth quilted jacket.

OFF THE RAILS:

At this point, my brain had been overtaken by patchwork. I’d made two quilted jackets back to back, and felt emboldened. Plus my powerful new machine made it super easy.

This brings me back to the home decor piece: we have a bunch of guests coming this fall, and as the evenings become crisp and cool, I worried there wasn’t enough warm bedding for them. I pulled out a beautiful vintage quilt top I’ve been dragging around for years. I don’t remember when or where I bought it, or how much it cost. I have always loved it, and wanted to turn it into a quilt.

The vintage quilt top that I finally made into a completed quilt. Shown in our guest bedroom, which is still a big work in progress.

So I did! I had a vintage flat sheet for the backing, and added a strip of quilting cotton along one side to make it as big as the top. I bought batting and I got to work. I quilted it with simple straight lines on my BERNINA 735. I rolled up the quilt and used a long table to support the weight; with the walking foot and the huge throat space, quilting it was much easier than I anticipated.

The quilt came out so well. I wish I could show it to whoever did the hand piecing of all the blocks. It’s such beautiful work, and now it will keep our guests warm for years to come.

NOW I’M JUST CRAZY:

This is a real give a mouse a cookie situation. Because the quilt looks great, but I keep thinking, wouldn’t it be fun to add matching shams? So I am in the midst of making some.

SCRAPS BEGIT SCRAPS:

As I work through this, something else has happened. Quilts are traditionally made to use up scraps, but making them generates scraps. Sure, they get smaller and the shapes are irregular. But you keep getting more scraps. Then you put them in the box with the other scraps and see new combinations.

You can use way more fabrics in a quilt than you normally would on a garment. You can put colors and patterns in a quilt that you would never want to wear on your body. I think I’m a little addicted to creating combinations of designs - new ones, but with a little bit from the previous project mixed in.

JUST KEEP GOING:

I’m going to keep going, keep sewing. I have to finish the quilt for our bed - I’d love to wrap that up before the end of the year, but I think as long as I stay within our first year in the house, it’s fine. And the shams will come together quickly. I have like five more ideas, both garments and home decor, and I bet I’ll make some of them.

I don’t think I’ll ever be a dedicated quilter. As fun as it is to plan a quilt, my true love is sewing clothes. I love all the different techniques of garment sewing, plus what would I wear if I didn’t sew my own clothes? But now that we are in a house, I’ll probably do some more quilting. As long as there are scraps to be used, I’ll try to use them.

Oh, and for what it’s worth, I’ve sewed garments mixed in with all of these projects! I’ll try to get back to documenting them here. XO, Martha

I CAN'T STOP QUILTING (BUT WILL ALWAYS BE A GARMENT SEWER, DON'T WORRY)