Quilty Collaboration

The coolest thing happened when I started my website and newsletter: my friend Aynex Mercado who is both a quilt artist and a Senior UX Designer, offered to make me a logo! I first met Aynex when I posted a little intro on our Maryland Quilters Facebook group. I had just started my Instagram account, and was looking for other quilters to follow, and Aynex and I struck up a conversation. Since those early days, we have collaborated on multiple quilt projects, and are now in the midst of our second quilty trade - my logo for some as-yet-to-be-determined piecing work I’ll get to do that Aynex dreams up!

In February of 2023, about a year after we met, Aynex asked if I’d like to work together to make a quilt. Aynex has a collection of quilts that she has made featuring architecture in our city, Frederick, Maryland, and she asked what building I would be interested in collaborating to make. My first thought was a personal favorite, which is our downtown library. It’s a unique building right on Carroll Creek Linear Park, and a really special spot for me as a homeschooling parent of two curious kids!

To say that I was intimidated at the thought of making one of Aynex’s architecture quilts with her is an understatement - I agreed to collaborate, but only if she would piece the architecture part, and I would piece the background. Even that was a struggle for me in the beginning - first I tried sewing with a cardboard template Aynex cut for me, but it just didn’t feel like I could get the piecing accurate enough. Aynex made me paper templates, and after some printing struggles, I finally figured out how to print them to scale and piece them - but Foundation Paper Piecing (FPP) did not come easily to me in the beginning, and there were a fair number of panicked text messages to Aynex, along with celebrations of my success like these:

Aynex is extremely patient and can always see a work-around. When I was ready to give up (which happened several times throughout the process), Aynex always had an idea for how I could try again or work around the thing that was causing the difficulty.

We went through several iterations, and scaled back Aynex’s original design to make it simpler. It took several rounds of layout and color play before we found the one that felt like the right fit (in the second photo)

I was too nervous to quilt over Aynex’s beautiful building, so I basted the quilt and Aynex quilted the building portion, then I machine quilted around each triangle in the background. The original idea was for me to free-motion quilt wavy lines in the background, but my free motion skills are not super developed and it is a different feeling working on a collaborative quilt - in this case, I opted to hand quilt the wavy lines, which might seem like a slower effort, but for me came together very fast. I think part of what makes our collaboration work well is that we each have different skills and know how to use them to our advantage

One of the things I was super excited about is getting a photo of the quilt in front of the library - the lighting wasn’t spectacular, but it was still a fun attempt…

Aynex included this quilt in her exhibit of Frederick architecture quilts at Cowork Frederick (below), and it has since been part of her solo exhibition at the Delaplaine Arts Center and in a special exhibit titled Tactile Architecture at the International Quilt Festival in Houston, Texas

Almost as soon as we were done with the library quilt, Aynex had an idea for another collaboration. This time, Aynex had a vision of a quilt of the U.S. Capitol Dome, and she drafted a pattern for us to follow, complete with paper blocks to sew onto. I wasn’t getting out of piecing the architecture part this time around :) Before making this quilt, my Foundation Paper Piecing skills were newbie level, and after what I now call “Aynex Boot Camp”, I now feel pretty confident with FPP!

By August 2023, we had started piecing the Capitol quilt, and let me tell you, my first block came out pretty wonky! But even still, this little start had me feeling really hopeful about what I could do, and also extremely amazed with the quilts that Aynex makes, understanding how her design and piecing work in a more hands-on way.

Our rate of progress was a bit lopsided: Aynex finished her blue side of the dome while I was still plodding along with the red

Before we started, we debated several color schemes, including black and white and night and day, but we settled on this idea of the gradient from blue to purple to red, with a very intentional nod to the dominant American political parties and the vision of a common ground between the extremes.

I finished piecing the red at the end of September 2023, and we had our quilt top!

We opted for a simple quilting design that I did on my sewing machine, which was a little nerve-wracking (quilting over Aynex’s work -scary!), but it turned out pretty well

I remember thinking how fitting it was that I put the last stitches on the binding while riding the metro to DC for our DC Modern Quilt Guild meeting :)

We entered the quilt into QuiltCon, and it was accepted into the piecing category for the 2024 show! Here is the artist statement we wrote together to accompany the piece:

Contemporary American discourse is dominated by extremes, and news and social media fuel divisiveness and polarization.  What other colors emerge when we explore the gradient between red and blue? We hope quilting the U.S. Capitol (a controversial symbol of democracy as well as a local landmark for us) in these colors, these shades of purple, offers a counterpoint to red vs. blue portrayals of American politics, culture, and society. 

Our political colors range from red to blue and everything in between. Our hope is that instead of arming yourself in your team’s color, recognizing connections between our beliefs and values might strengthen the resilience of the American Gradation.

Aynex didn't attend QuiltCon, and I’ve always had a vision of photo-shopping her into the photo I took with our quilt…I’m not the designer of the two of us, but here’s my best shot. Just imagine she was there too :)

In addition to the honor of having our quilt accepted to QuiltCon, it ended up selling at the show, and now it lives with a new owner which was a very exciting surprise for us.

Aynex’s next vision was for a quilty trade - we went back and forth for quite a while until we decided on what we each wanted: I would piece a bed-sized quilt for Aynex, and she would make one of her architecture quilts of my house in Frederick. The pattern we chose for Aynex’s quilt was very challenging to piece, and as with every project I’ve done with Aynex, I learned a lot and was really pleased with the result.

Which leads us to now, which is that Aynex offered to design a logo for my website and newsletter in exchange for a piecing project yet to be determined…cross your fingers for me that it isn’t TOO challenging (it will be ;))

I asked Aynex for something clean and fun with a nod to quilting or sewing. I like the idea of black and white or multicolor, or both, and I think she nailed it: