All Kinds of Quilts by Barbara Strick

Quilting is a way of making sense of my life. As I design and sort fabrics, I also sort thoughts, ideas, problems, solutions, perceptions, reflections. I let my mind drift, and then bring it back into focus. In this way, the creative process becomes something like meditation. The cut-up and rearranged fabric becomes something different; an expression of what’s going on inside of me. It’s both calming and exciting.
The quilts I enjoy creating most are those sewn from used cut-up clothing. Although the fabric is often difficult to work with, I like the feeling that the fabric had a prior life and had meaning in someone’s life.

My love of fabric started in my childhood, when I used to cut swatches of fabric for my father’s classes – he was a Fabric Science teacher at FIT in New York. I learned to sew as a teenager, when I bought the sewing machine I still use today for my quilts. I started quilting almost ten years ago at a free class at College of Marin, and I felt like I had found my calling.