Friday, March 11, 2011

Quilt Names

Riley's Quilt
Go in Green
Sunbonnet's Garden
Bow Tie Affair
After reading the comments from my Blue Monday post, I started to post a reply to the quilt naming theories.  This is something that's come up in several conversations over the last few years.  Some quilters, like myself, think everything should have a name--kids, pets, quilts, poems, homes--the list is really quite long for me.

Afterall, if it's worth your time and requires something from your brain, such as creativity or maintenance skills, then it's worth putting in the effort to name it.  I wouldn't give birth to someone and just call him "you," although technically You could be a name.  (I once met a kid named Yes and goodness knows, we have some kids with equally strange names at just about any high school.)  My point, though, is that quilts deserve to have a name.  Sally or Bob or Mary's Quilt might work, but I like to get creative.

The more creative I get with the quilt piecework and quilting, more more creative I get with the naming.  In fact, I would venture to say I spend a good deal of my quilting time trying out names.  I'll have an idea, call the quilt that a few times and if doesn't respond, I figure that's not the name.  Sometimes it takes a little effort to figure it out, but it's  a surefire way of finding name.  Luckily, it doesn't take me much longer to discover the name than to make the quilt.....sort of like having nine months of pregnancy to find a name for a baby. When the baby comes, it should be called something other than Baby.
Le Boites de Fleurs

Now, if you subscribe to the notion that things don't need names, you might want to get into another line.  This is the quilt/baby naming line and it's moving slow.  In fact, it's just about standing still and not going anywhere at all.  That's because we know the results: get to the end of the line, think of good reasons to name something, wait to get to the front of the line and give the reason, then return to the end of the line to think and wait.  In other words, it's what we do in this line!

So, which line do you find yourself in: the naming line or the other line?  The other line may move faster or in another direction, but ours is Oh, so much Better!

Leave a comment, I'm curious as to which line you're standing in.

1 comment:

Betty Lou said...

O.K., I will name my quilts, I never liked being last in line.