STEP Reflection – Introductory Quilting

Picture of a screen with an excel sheet pulled up, 10 different patterns for a quilt with 3×4 log cabin blocks in my colors.

Excel spreadsheet of design ideas

Selection of 7 folded fabrics, 3 light blue, 3 green, 1 navy with small blue flowers and green leaves.

Fabric selections

I'm laying on the floor with two thumbs up, on top of me is most of a quilt.

Me and the moment enough of the quilt was together to use it as a blanket!

Please provide a brief description of your STEP Signature Project. (2-3 sentences)

My STEP Signature Project was based around developing what I hope will be a life-long skill — sewing! I attended an introductory course at a quilting shop and I learned how to piece together fabric patterns, use a sewing machine, problem solve when a sewing machine mysteriously stops working, quilt multiple layers together, the principles of embroidery, and bind unfinished edges together.

What about your understanding of yourself, your assumptions, or your view of the world changed/transformed while completing your STEP Signature Project? (1-2 paragraphs)

I know people who are fantastic at sewing. I, rather ignorantly, grew up seeing the ease with which they made such impressive projects and inferred that sewing is simple. Through completing my STEP Signature Project, I learned that my assumption was not at all true. Sewing can be easy, eventually, after years of dedicated practice, but for a beginner (especially one who does not enjoy not being good at something right away)? Very complicated! There are so many moving pieces, so many places you need to have measured correctly or something will not work, and all sorts of ways to jam a sewing machine. I quickly had to accept that I am not a quilting prodigy and start putting in the hours to improve. Luckily, I had a lot of support from the staff and my fellow classmates at Quilt Beginnings, and my grandma was able to FaceTime and help me diagnose machine problems.

I now have a greater appreciation for the people in my life and what their sewing prowess really means — not that it is easy, but that they put in a lot of effort to get so good. I myself have new technical skills, but perhaps more meaningful in the “transformative” sense is that I went out of my comfort zone to try something new and then worked at it even though it did not come naturally to me. As someone trying to reform my unhelpful perfectionism, this is a huge step.

What events, interactions, relationships, or activities during your STEP Signature Project led to the change/transformation that you discussed in #2, and how did those affect you? (3-4 paragraphs)

My positive experience was absolutely the result of the wonderful guidance and support from the people around me. The staff at Quilt Beginnings were there for me through the whole process — deciding which class, agonizing over fabric combinations, my first mistake, and even the first time I did something correctly. My teacher was not only an experienced quilter, but an experienced educator. She has been teaching at Quilt Beginnings for many classes, and before that she was a Home Economics teacher at a local high school. It was very evident in the way she communicated. She anticipated the questions we would have, gave us the why behind the methods we were taught, and constructively got us back on track when someone’s piecing did not fit together quite correctly.

For the rest of my classmates, despite no one being an experienced quilter, many people there had much more sewing experience than I came in with (not difficult to beat 0). It was a very welcoming environment. There were steps in our process where we specifically spent our class time helping one another so nobody would feel overwhelmed. Everyone was so kind and supportive of one another that I cannot imagine a better environment to develop the skill of developing a new skill.

I also appreciated the support of my friends and family — much more informal than the official setting of the quilting shop, but important all the same. I spent days over a sewing machine at my parents’ kitchen table and in my friends’ living room because my apartment is not big enough to be sewing-project-friendly. Everyone shared my excitement for this new project and I would not have been motivated without all that support. 

Why is this change/transformation significant or valuable for your life? Write one or two paragraphs discussing why this change or development matters and/or relates to your academic, personal, and/or professional goals and future plans. (1-2 paragraphs)

First, I will address the growth in my technical skills. I started off as someone who had hand-stitched a stuffed animal in elementary school art class and thought there was nothing tricky at all. I learned that there are actually a lot of tricky parts to sewing and I learned how to do them. I have easily quadrupled the sewing capabilities I had before my STEP Signature Project began. I feel comfortable not only with the thought of quilting, but of mending clothes and other sewing projects which were not previously on my radar but could be super helpful. I also already have plans for my next quilt!

As for personal growth, I think increasing my willingness to try new things is a growth in my maturity. Having an experience where I not only learned new skills, but first had to overcome the thought that it would not be much work at all, was beneficial as I now can approach other topics with that same attitude. Crafting, yes, but also professionally and interpersonally. Just because I think now that I am not good at something, or maybe even that something is easy but not worth my doing, I can challenge that belief and recognize that maybe there is value there in trying and failing and keeping on anyways.

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