Current status: Channeling the original Quilt Report master Joe Cunningham
Joe’s Quilt Reports (121 and counting) are fantastic for their earnestness and positivity. And for how he moves away and back to the studio/work. I keep coming back to that drawing video and nodding my head when he talks about:
Those voices in my head that remind me that I’m not actually qualified to be doing this, that I don’t even know what I’m doing for sure. I’m just sort of faking it.
and
Let those words blow through your mind like a tired old breeze.
Three weeks ago we said thanks to Joe Pera, and this week it’s thanks to Joe Cunningham. Thanks Joe, let’s plow on through.
Last weekend Lotje & I went to the book launch of Some Towels I Found by Prang Gnarp at our favorite neighborhood book shop Terry Bleu <3 It’s a simple sweet palm sized book of towel illustrations. That’s it and it’s great!
It got me looking back into my sketch books and thinking about illustrations and quilts. As someone who makes quilts, like a snail trying to catch up to my great grandmother’s 80 quilt lifetime record, I’ve always been excited by the idea of quick quilts and getting a quilt idea quickly down on paper. The making of the quilts is never quick so that tradition is still kicking.
I’m excited by illustrations because a quilt can be anything on paper. And as the conveniently snipped Willem Elsschot quote says:
because between dream and deed there are laws and practical obstacles
Every other month or so I get a new invention idea from my dad. He’s spring of invention ideas and enjoys shooting them my way whenever they pop up. Quilt sketches are my own half baked plans that may or may not be technically and will never materalize how they’re sketched on the page. So in that like-father-like-son tradition, I’ll end with three highlights from the archives.


This quilt sketch eventually turned into the Three Eggs and a Fossil Cabinet (2018).
Thanks for tuning into the Quick Quilt Report #1. There will be more but I think that’s enough to wet the appetite for now. I hope you’re smiling like that worm right there ^ and let any doubtful words blow through your mind like a tired old breeze.
Quiltedly yours,
Jason