ANNIE AND PATCHWORKING

I spent much of the day hovering – loitering, really – beside and behind groups of women, eavesdropping on their comments and conversations.  Odd behaviour maybe, but necessary in order to gauge the reaction to Annie’s quilts.

The occasion was the annual show of Victorian Quilters Inc., Quilt Showcase 2012.  Annie, my wife, is a long-time member of Vic Quilters, and a frequent exhibitor in the annual show; and a prize-winner a number of times. 

Annie is a patchworker.  This is not something she does for profit, but it’s certainly something she does for pleasure.  And to say that patchworking is a pastime or a hobby - in my view, and certainly based on my observation – would be to devalue its importance.  This is not something to be picked up from time to time when the mood arises or when time permits; there is a commitment. The importance to Annie is evidenced by the fact that, on those annoying and intrusive forms that require one to indicate occupation, Annie inserts “patchworker”.  This is what she does; this is part of her identity, who she is.

It started a bit over 20 years ago.  Annie was already in her 40s, and had dabbled in a range of crafts.  There had even been early quilting attempts.  She had been her own dressmaker when a teenager, and had been a lifelong knitter.  Then she saw a notice about a forthcoming patchworking class at a nearby shop, joined the class, and was hooked.  [Primarily Patchwork is no longer trading in Canterbury, although the proprietor Di Ford remains active in the field.]

Annie likes to say that “the rest is history”, but that history didn’t just happen, and it wasn’t history made by others.  It was Annie’s history.  The current buzzword is “journey”, and patchworking has been a significant and pervasive backdrop to Annie’s journey of the past 20 years.  During more than ten of those years Annie was afflicted with chronic fatigue syndrome, and she freely acknowledges that her patchworking – one of the few things that she had the energy for – “kept her sane”.

All that is long past.  Today Annie is well and vigorous, and as busy as ever with her quilts.  With groups of friends she has made numerous small quilts for hospital nurseries and other good causes; and there have been group “friendship” quilts for friends’ birthdays; and others where the piecing and the quilting has been by machine rather than by hand.  But hand piecing, and hand quilting, is Annie’s passion; and, not surprisingly, therefore, some of her larger efforts have taken more than a year to complete.  Completion time is also stretched by working on more than one quilt at a time.  Still there’s always the deadline of some upcoming quilt show: in addition to Vic Quilters Annie has exhibited at the show of her patchworking club, Waverley Patchworkers, and at the Sydney Quilt Show.

The majority of quilts made (and exhibited) these days are machine pieced, certainly machine quilted – perhaps not so surprising in these “busier” times, and times with so many other preoccupations.  But Annie is disappointed at the trend, because it has tended to devalue the time and effort that goes into hand work.  When you think about it, there’s a pretty prodigious effort involved in embarking on a task that, at the outset, is known will take a year to complete. 

And so, with Annie’s “old fashioned” attitude to patchworking, it was doubly satisfying for her to be invited to be the Profile Quilter at this year’s Vic Quilters Showcase.  This involves a display area, separate from the quilts entered in the Showcase itself, for about 25 of Annie’s quilts.  Yes, there are 25, and more.  The quilts are arranged in completion order, and each has an accompanying short description.  Where the quilt has won some prize, the rosette or the ribbon is affixed.   Annie sits there, on display like her quilts, working on her latest quilt, happily sharing her experience with those who ask, and rightly (albeit modestly) receiving occasional words of praise.

At home a couple of the quilts are on the beds, but mostly they are stacked, so even when there might be a “show and tell” for some visitor there’s no way to get a full view or proper perspective.  Thus to see 25 of them individually displayed is really exciting.  And to see them hung in chronological order is a bonus…………although I reckon that it would be a mistake to assume that the earlier ones are inferior; Annie seems to have appeared on the patchworking scene fully formed.  Her sense of colour is matchless, and her work is superb.

So there I was yesterday, on opening day, with a mere passing interest in the quilt Showcase itself, spending nearly all my time prowling back and forth along Annie’s artworks – be in no doubt, this is an artist’s retrospective!  I was not disappointed by what I heard, and in the reactions I observed.  And more than once I was a little overwhelmed by the magnitude of Annie’s work, and the life she has invested in its execution.

Enjoy Saturday and Sunday, Annie.

Love, Gary

27 July, 2012