{"id":58819,"date":"2014-04-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-04-02T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-graduate-student-in-english-cultural-studies-writes-book-about-modern-quilt-movement\/"},"modified":"2014-04-02T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-04-02T00:00:00","slug":"uri-graduate-student-in-english-cultural-studies-writes-book-about-modern-quilt-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2014\/04\/uri-graduate-student-in-english-cultural-studies-writes-book-about-modern-quilt-movement\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 graduate student in English, cultural studies writes book about modern quilt movement"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tRachel May is award-winning writer for her short stories<\/p>\n

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 April 2, 2014 \u2013 Who among us hasn’t gazed upon a handmade quilt hanging on a friend\u2019s wall \u2013 or the Smithsonian \u2013 and wondered how she did it, what with all those tiny squares and triangles.<\/p>\n


\n溏心vlog免费B站 English teacher and graduate student Rachel May has some good news: If you can sew a straight line, you can quilt. And if you\u2019re a creative soul \u2013 or want to be \u2013 then you can make a masterpiece.<\/p>\n


\nIn her new book, \u201cQuilting with a Modern Slant: People, Patterns, and Techniques Inspiring the Modern Quilt Community,\u201d May, of North Kingstown, encourages beginners to \u201cpick up fabric and scissors, needle and thread\u201d and sew something that reflects \u201cyour voice.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\u201cThere are so many different ways of quilting,\u201d she says. \u201cYou can draw from tradition, make up your own pattern, or dye your own fabric. That\u2019s what allows you to make it your own.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nThe modern quilting movement has been growing for decades. A founding member of the Boston Modern Quilt Guild, May says the movement allows quilters the freedom to play with tradition and take liberties with fabrics, patterns, colors, stitching and space. Some say it\u2019s a hybrid of traditional quilting and quilting as art.<\/p>\n


\nHow-to tutorials with advice are scattered throughout the book. But the focus is on profiles of 80 quilters \u2013 traditional and art quilters, as well as modern ones \u2013 about how they quilt and, just as important, why they quilt.<\/p>\n


\nSince the book was published in January, May has been touring the country, signing copies and meeting other quilters in what she describes as a vibrant community of mostly women from all backgrounds \u2013 engineers, lawyers, artists, and stay-at-home mothers.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cIt\u2019s been really fun,\u201d she says. \u201cQuilters bring their own work and talk about the process and ask a lot of questions. It\u2019s inspiring to meet quilters from all over the country.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nMay expected to sell 100 copies and call it a day. But 8,000 copies have been sold so far, enough to warrant a second printing. Her book tour took her to Seattle and Denver, and this summer she expects to visit Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and Charleston, S.C.<\/p>\n


\nMay\u2019s mother taught her how to sew when she was a girl in Bolton, a small community outside Boston. She sewed some in her 20s, but embraced it in her 30s when she was living in Nebraska, where winters were \u201ccold and quiet.\u201d She made a wedding quilt for a friend with scraps from a fabric store and was hooked.<\/p>\n


\nBack on the East Coast, she continued her quilting and started making what she calls fabric pictures \u2013 narratives made with fabric pieces. In one, for example, she\u2019s portrayed as a girl looking out her bedroom window longing to play in a field of flowers outside. <\/p>\n


\nShe found the work meditative. \u201cIt\u2019s really relaxing,\u201d she says. \u201cI can\u2019t paint. I can\u2019t draw. I feel like this is something I can do.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nIn 2010, just before she started teaching creative writing and literature classes in 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s English department, she came up with the idea for her quilting book. It took three years to write. The book has received rave reviews from critics and was even featured on the Martha Stewart Living blog.<\/p>\n


\nCreative writing is May\u2019s other passion. She has published 20 short stories and is working on a novel about three sisters and how their lives change after one sister is seriously hurt in an accident.<\/p>\n


\nWriting a novel and quilting share a common thread, she says. \u201cMy novel is written in short pieces \u2013 short bits of prose. I wrote those as they came to me, and now I\u2019m trying to figure out how to put them together. It sort of feels like piecing a quilt.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nMay has won many writing awards, including two prestigious Pushcart Prize nominations. She is also editor of the Rhode Island-based literary journal, Ocean State Review. <\/p>\n


\nAt 溏心vlog免费B站, she is pursuing a doctorate in English and cultural studies, with a focus on quilts and narrative. She\u2019s researching a historic quilt in 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s textile department that the Cushman family, an old Rhode Island family, worked on from 1830 to 1950.<\/p>\n


\nPaper doubles as a pattern to make fabric shapes like hexagons. May is examining the writings on the Cushman\u2019s paper patterns to discern their historic significance. Paper was in scarce supply then, so used sheets were cut up for quilting.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cI\u2019m finding pieces of shipping records and references to rum and sugar in the West Indies,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m trying to figure out where all these scraps of paper came from and what they tell us about the family. It\u2019s fascinating.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nFor information about May\u2019s book, visit Quilting with a Modern Slant<\/a>. To see her fabric pictures, visit Fabric<\/a>.<\/p>\n


\nPictured above: Rachel May, of North Kingstown, a teacher and graduate student in English and cultural studies at the 溏心vlog免费B站. She wrote a book, \u201cQuilting with a Modern Slant: People, Patterns, and Techniques Inspiring the Modern Quilt Community.\u201d May has presented scholarly papers on quilting, including one at the Association of Cultural Studies in Paris.<\/p>\n


\n Photo by Stacey Shrontz.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rachel May is award-winning writer for her short stories KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 April 2, 2014 \u2013 Who among us hasn’t gazed upon a handmade quilt hanging on a friend\u2019s wall \u2013 or the Smithsonian \u2013 and wondered how she did it, what with all those tiny squares and triangles. 溏心vlog免费B站 English […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58821,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}