Jordan Year (Quilt of Golden Delights)

November 24, 2024 by Laura Hartrich in quilts

approximately 76x76, finished 2024

I started 2023 asking, “what would make a golden year?” I wrote a list of words that I wanted to focus on:

delight
savoring
awareness
grace
celebration
gentleness
strength
patience
generosity
connecting
lingering
playing
moving
resting

The idea being that by focusing on these themes I could manifest a fantastic year. For the year’s quilt, I planned to write something that happened related to one of the words each day, and embroider it on the quilt. (In hindsight this list is comically long and all-encompassing).

Soon enough I found myself reading The Book of Delights by Ross Gay. I loved it so much, and decided to shift away from my list of words and focus only on recording one delight from each day.

I loved collecting delights. It was –forgive me – delightful. On hard days, it could be a challenge to notice one, but I did it without fail. Many days, it was hard to limit myself to only one (sometimes I didn’t. See 2/16, 4/12, 7/28.)

Ironically 2023 brought me some of the very lowest lows I had ever experienced… mental health crises for my kids, treasured 20-year marriage in a rough spot, fieldwork that had me questioning whether I was cut out for the new career I had just spent two grueling years studying for… I may have cried more in 2023 than in my previous 41 years combined.

Did it turn out to be a golden year? I can’t answer that. I am glad I have a record of the delights instead of a record of the low points. Let those heartbreaks grow fuzzy. I survived them all. Let the delights stay present and clear in my mind, sharp as the needle that stitched them into this quilt for hours upon hours.

A word on colors and title:

This is the fourth quilt I’ve made using strips of log cabins to represent the days of the year. The other versions used various colors and a gold colored strip for the 23rd of each month. 23 is my favorite number ( my birthday falls on the 23rd of the best month of the year, September!) so I highlighted it in this series of quilts. For 2023, I decided to make gold my main color, and brought back colors from the series to mark the 23rd of each month.

“Jordan year” was an internet nickname for 2023 that emerged early on, an homage to Michael Jordan, #23, of course. For me it held a double meaning, as Jordan was also the name of my supervising OT for the first 3 months of the year (source of many tears and many learnings).

Everybody's Talking

November 22, 2024 by Laura Hartrich in quilts

(Alternate title: does everyone really need their own podcast?)

Everybody’s Talking, 50”x54”, finished 2024

A depiction of the mixed blessings of living in this internet age. Sugary sweet colors give way to overwhelm when every face I scroll past is telling me what I should be doing with my life, my health, my money, my relationships. That’s not to mention every celebrity and even lots of friends recording podcasts and here’s me for some reason feeling pressure to listen to them all. I love the fun of the internet and I subscribe to the Patreon of my favorite podcast, so I’m not against these things. But it also feels suffocating and no one is coming to help me regulate my consumption. That’s all on me, baby. Exhausting.

In the words of Bo Burnham, “Here’s a question for you guys. Is it necessary that every single person on this planet expresses every single opinion that they have on every single thing that occurs all at the same time?”

Working Through

January 31, 2024 by Laura Hartrich in quilts

Over the last year, I’ve had recurring pain in my elbow. The pain fluctuates and flares — I’ve come to think of it as its own entity. Each morning I check in.

How are you today?
How much attention will you require today?
What will you allow me to do today?

It’s always in the back of my mind, like a second pulse. I wanted to illustrate my relationship to the pain but also my need to keep going, keep creating, and keep using my body in this life. So in this quilt I’m attempting to portray my elbow pain alongside some creative life force flowing out of my hands. I appreciate my hands, wrists, and elbows for allowing me to do what I love. I’m rooting for them and trying to care for them so they will carry me another 30 to 50 years, please and thank you.

This quilt was constructed almost entirely from deconstructed shirts (everything but the back) as part of the Take the Shirt Off My Back sustainability challenge organized by Diane Paquin Provost, a member of my beloved Chicago Modern Quilt Guild. I took inspiration from amazing quilters I admire: Carolina Oneto, Sherri Lynn Wood, and Annabel Wrigley. From sketch to construction, this is one of the harder things I have pieced and I’m proud of how it turned out.

Three Gifts

January 31, 2024 by Laura Hartrich in quilts

My daughter recently graduated high school. It wasn’t always an easy journey and I was inspired to make a few gifts for some folks who helped her (and us) get through.

The first is a mini quilt for her Japanese teacher who taught her for 3 years and was an amazing presence in her days. This teacher is such a fun person, such a character, such a quirky and positive personality. We all love her. She happens to have a thing for Brad Pitt. He often appears in her powerpoint presentations. Her room is covered floor to ceiling with mostly Brad Pitt and a little Japanese ephemera. So this mini quilt is for Sensei, and now hangs in her classroom. It measures about 23” square. I made the center from a t-shirt and pieced the rest with Japanese fabrics I found on etsy. I handquilted it in a baptist fan motif to mirror some of the prints on the fabrics.

Next I made a Triangle Jitters quilt for the school guidance counselor who helped us navigate high school for both of our kids. Seven years of countless emails and phone calls from me! He handled it like a true pro with patience, skill, and care for my kids that I sincerely appreciated. I didn’t know what colors he would like so I went with the school colors. I quilted this on my Juki, using a walking foot organic X shape from Jacquie Gering’s book Walk. This was my second time making this Suzy Quilts pattern and it’s fantastic. This one measured 49”x71”.

Finally I made a quilt for the color guard coach. My daughter enjoyed 4 seasons of spinning flags with the color guard, and we loved watching her do it. It was a highlight of her high school years for sure. I designed this quilt myself, attempting to convey spinning flags. The team used hot pink practice flags this year which really appealed to me. I wanted the sashing to be dark enough to read almost black but in actuality it’s several colors (blues, reds, purples, and browns). I did some stitch in the ditch quilting and some handquilting to finish this one up. It measures 54”x64”.

Most photos by Mitch Hopper, a few by me. It’s weird to be the parent of two high school graduates! It went by so quickly. Onward!

Ode to Kindah Khalidy

January 10, 2024 by Laura Hartrich in quilts

I love to collect colorful prints on white backgrounds but they tend to languish in my stash. I challenged myself to use them together in a quilt, experimenting with the various scales and densities of the patterns to see if I could create contrast despite the shared background. As I chopped and rearranged the fabrics, the resulting shapes reminded me of the bright and joyful paintings of Kindah Khalidy, one of my favorite artists. So I’ve named this one after her. The wool ties move in a quarter arc rainbow across the entire surface, adding another fun layer of color and shapes.

Measures approximately 73” square. Photos by Mitch Hopper.