Laura Hartrich 3/12/22 Laura Hartrich 3/12/22

always (a quilt for my son)

In 2019 I set out to make a quilt for my then 16 year old son. I’ve been quilting for 10 years now and hadn’t yet made quilts specifically for my kids. Maybe it felt like too much pressure to choose a design? I don’t know why it took me so long but I was finally ready. the bars were floating in a background of various corals (I asked my son what colors he liked and he was not forthcoming— we eventually settled on the color of his current store-bought blanket, a beautiful coral). I included lots of personal fabrics in this one, lots of my son’s old t-shirts, scraps from other projects, and four embroidered portraits.

then/now/always, completed 2019, measures 92”x80”

I had stitched a couple portraits of my kids years ago. My plan was to make a couple more, then create a little display of them all on the wall. When my daughter came out to us and transitioned, it no longer felt right to hang old images of her up around the house. But I struggled with the idea of getting rid of those stitched portraits, or even of them sitting in a drawer, forgotten. I asked my daughter if she would be okay with me piecing them into a quilt. In her even-keel way, she said, “sure, that’s fine, but could you add some new ones too?” Of course I obliged. There are two old portraits pieced into the quilt, and two new. Two from before we knew my daughter as she is, and two from after.

That’s how this quilt for my son became a quilt about my son and my daughter. A document and a celebration of how love can transcend time, age, and gender. The portrait subjects have evolved over time. What hasn't changed is the close bond between siblings, and the love and pride I feel for both of my children.

Since this quilt is so big I used wool batting to keep it light and fluffy. I handquilted it with Perle cotton. There’s a quote from our favorite podcast on the back, just for fun, which I made out of paper and then had printed on Spoonflower. Final pictures by Mitch Hopper. Measures 92”x80”.

back of quilt detail, MBMBAM quote made from paper and printed onto fabric

I tried something new for the label on this quilt. I printed this whole story onto fabric via Spoonflower. But instead of having a block of text exposed on the back of the quilt, I decided to tuck it away into a fabric envelope. I found a beautiful silk envelope on etsy and stitched it onto the quilt’s back. Then I tucked the longer story label into the envelope, after securing it with beaded strings so it won’t get lost or separated from the quilt. I am quite happy with this technique , and could definitely see myself using it again. For me, this ensures the story of this quilt won’t get lost. Wherever this quilt goes in its lifetime, its story will go along with it.

additional label, when taken out of fabric envelope

additional label , tucked into fabric envelope

Laura Hartrich 12/2/19 Laura Hartrich 12/2/19

2018 Habit Tracking Quilt

My idea for the 2018 version of the series of goal quilts I have been doing was slightly different than previous years. Instead of representing the completion of my goals for the year, I wanted to track it day by day.

At the start of the year, I had 5 habits I wanted to incorporate in my day (actually 3 things I wanted to start doing and 2 I wanted to sotp doing). I designed a block with 5 fields. Each field represented one habit. If I did the habit for the day, I woud put color in the field. If I didn’t do it, the field would remain white.

I also decided to re-evaluate my habits every quarter, in case the habits I was trying to adopt were too hard, too easy, not serving me, or whatever. And I did end up changing the habits I was working on each quarter. In fact, I tracked fewer habits progressively as the year went on. I’m not sure if this was a result of burnout or if it was an honest reflection of what was working for me. By the end of the year, I was tracking only one thing, writing in a gratitude journal. On this quilt I included a very detailed label of the habits I was pursuing, and my thinking behind changing throughout the year, because I knew I would forget if I didn’t write it down.

Part of the idea behind this design was to make plain the patchwork nature of life. I wanted to show that even “failure” to keep up with a habit (represented by white fields on the quilt) can add interest and movement and doesn’t take away from the overall design. Basically I want to say something cheesy like, life is a beautiful patchwork in spite of ups and downs, successes and failures. It is cheesy, but I believe it.

This quilt measures 53”x65”. Nikki Maroon quilted it for me, and Mitch Hopper took these photos.

2018 Habit Tracking Quilt, embroidered label

Laura Hartrich 12/2/19 Laura Hartrich 12/2/19

2017 Goal Visualization Quilt

I’ve written before about how I needed to make the designs for these yearly quilts as simple as possible in order to make continuing this project feasible. The 2017 quilt is a great example of that. I started the year with 4 goals:

exercise 250 times
host friends for a meal 6 times
make three quilts, start to finish
meditate 3500 minutes

I represented the completion of these goals with a percentage of a circle. That was my whole design for the quilt. But then there happened to be two other big things that took place that year: 1. We bought a house and moved, and 2. I went back to school. And I felt like I should get credit for those things, even if I didn’t fully complete my four goals for the year. That’s when I added the two big circles around the edge of the quilt.

This quilt measures 46” square. It was quilted by Nikki Maroon. Mitch Hopper took final pictures for me.

Laura Hartrich 9/15/19 Laura Hartrich 9/15/19

2016 Goal Visualization Quilt

Another year, another list of realistic and unrealistic goals, another quilt to represent it all.

After my 2014 quilt I knew I had to simplify my designs if I had any hope of keeping up with a yearly series. My design for 2016 was a basic bar graph. Completion of goals is shown in percentages. For those items where I was able to surpass my goal, the bar goes beyond the 100% mark in a slightly different color. And one of the items didn’t make it onto the graph at all (0% completion).

Nikki Maroon quilted this for me. The piece measures 53” x 33”. Mitch Hopper took photos for me.

Laura Hartrich 9/11/19 Laura Hartrich 9/11/19

2015 Goal Visualization Quilt

When I made my 2014 Goal Visualization Quilt, I thought maybe I was at the beginning of a series. I typically start each new year with a list of resolutions or measurable goals or whatever you want to call them, so why not document them in quilt form? I knew that I would have to really simplify my designs if I were to make this a yearly project, since my first goal visualization quilt took me 3 years to complete. So I set about planning this series, each year writing down my resolutions and then sketching a visual representation for each year. And now, four years later, I’m finally getting around to making the quilts.

For 2015 I grouped my goals into 5 categories:

Strength for fitness related goals,

Center for things related to spirituality and mindfulness,

Work for goals related to finishing art/quilt projects,

Family for things I wanted to make time to do with my husband and kids, and

Routine for some simple daily self-care habits I wanted to build.

I represented each goal as basically a box to be ticked. And X means I accomplished the goal for the year, an empty square means I did not. Even though at a lot of these boxes were empty at the end of the year, I still found it a valuable exercise. This process of “failure” helps me hone my goals each year and make them more realistic, helpful, and useful for me.

This quilt measures approximately 56” square. It was quilted by Nikki Maroon and Mitch Hopper took photos for me.