Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Flightless Bird: Quilts

Episode Date: December 12, 2023

This week on Flightless Bird, David Farrier takes Monica’s advice from an earlier episode and investigates America’s obsession with quilts. He begins his journey by interviewing quilting podcaster Ashelyn Downs of “The Grateful Thread”. Farrier discovers that quilting is not just oldies sitting by the fire, but that there’s a new movement of younger, more diverse quilters taking over America. He sets off to meet Latifah Saafir, an engineer who now makes some of the most amazing quilts you’ll see, incorporating bits of her culture and life into the quilts she makes. David then stops in on another young quilter, Luke Haynes, who has some of his quilts hanging on gallery walls. Luke insists on making a quilt featuring the one and only Monica Padman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm David Farrier, a New Zealander accidentally marooned in America, and I want to figure out what makes this country tick. Now, mostly this podcast is just me rambling on about things that confuse me about America, things I want to know. Like, why are the water levels in American toilets so high? Or why is every second American armed with a leaf blower? Why is the American flag everywhere I look? Each week, a new question

that I try to answer. Sometimes I'm successful and sometimes I fail miserably. But some very American things escape my point of view just because I'm looking in a different direction or miss what's right in front of me. And so I rely on Monica and Rob who sometimes have their own questions about American culture. I suggested, and I think you said okay, but then you decided not to listen. So I'm going to say it here. Quilts. Quilts.

Yeah, that's so American. They don't have quilts in New Zealand. I'm putting it on my list. You didn't even know what it was. Quilts. So specific. Yeah, it seems very pilgrim-y yeah okay quilts where to begin with quilts draped over every bed and couch in america i wondered how i'd miss this thing that america

loves so much the thing is i'd never really thought about quilts before but now i am they do feel kind of pilgrim-y. Something brought to America during colonial times, as Europeans did their thing and colonized the hell out of everything in sight. America took to quilting like it took to cheeseburgers. A quick look around the internet shows that quilting is now a thriving multi-billion dollar industry here in the US. But why? And who's quilting? So grab your needle and thread and prepare to start sewing together all your old clothes and blankets and anything else in sight really, because this is the quilting episode. This was such a good idea. I'm so pleased.

And I want to apologize for kind of poo-pooing it. You brought it up a few times. I'm talking about quilts. Are they a big deal? Really? But once you think about quilts, you can't stop thinking about them and they're everywhere. Yes. The way I got you in was by telling you that there are t-shirt quilts. Yeah. And I got excited because I love a design like

a graphic t-shirt. I'm that guy. Here's a t-shirt with something to do with my personality on it. Yep. Yeah. I got excited. I have that problem too. And I love merch so much. Isn't it great? Why is it so great? What's the psychology behind why we love merch? Is it an identity indicator? It's identity. It's wearing a personality on the outside.

On your sleeve, literally. It's making a statement. Yeah, on your sleeve, literally. And I go sometimes to throw out t-shirts I've collected from concerts and things and it's really hard because it's connected to this memory i know i mean all your taylor swift shirts how do you throw any of those out because it's connected to this really great night well you got someone to line up and get the merch for you in front of you speaking of that i forgot that before I even went to the concert, I anticipated the merch being impossible to get.

Yeah, horrible. And so I ordered a bunch online beforehand. You're from like the Taylor Swift store? Yeah, online. Because I was like, I'm just not even going to deal with the merch on the day. I don't want to be stressed about it. Yeah. Yes.

And so I ordered a bunch of stuff. And then I went to the concert. And then that was a separate thing. I needed the merch from the place. And also sometimes the stuff often they sell at concerts, it's not online yet. It's different. It's special to the show. Exactly.

And that was true. The stuff that was there was not the stuff online. And then I needed it. And then, so I got my merch via the very sweet women. Who you got their stuff as well. You paid for their stuff. Thank you. Brilliant arrangement. And then, so I got my merch via the very sweet women Who you got their stuff as well, like you pay for their stuff Thank you Brilliant arrangement And then I forgot all about the merch I ordered

And it arrived like months later I opened this box and was like, oh fuck Just full of Taylor Swift stuff So now I have so much Eris tour merch That's nice though, that's like when a little present arrives Taylor Swift stuff. So now I have so much Aras tour merch. That's nice though. That's like when a little present arrives. You ordered something and then it arrives.

That's the best thing because it's like, oh my God, I was not expecting this amazing treasure trove of stuff. Like the little baby hat you bought for Rob's baby. My little baby hat I bought for Rob that finally turned up. Oh man. Your merchandise at shows is such a nightmare. I like this really pretentious band called Tool. Okay. Who are their fans.

Just real quick because we've already talked. Oh, no. Have I already talked about this? No. We've already had this discussion because you think it's pretentious. Oh, the word I'm using. And I think it's funny that you call it pretentious because to me the sentence, I like this pretentious band called

tool called tool is an oxymoron absolutely yeah absolutely it can't be pretentious yeah what a band name right yeah and you've got their fans like me walking around with the word tool and blazing on our hats and stuff which i think surely has to be a joke from the band sort of looking down at their fans or something. I guess. But their merch is a whole different level where their accusations of the merch people, because they sell like limited edition posters for each concert, say. But there's allegations in the tool community of people at the merch table putting them aside and then immediately selling them on eBay and not even like getting to the public.

The people working. Yeah, working there. This underground network of like getting to the public. The people working. Yeah. Working there, this underground network of like merch swipers. So it's this whole other thing, but I know that feeling of getting to that merch table, huge lines, but that's why we keep these things and sew them on fricking quilts. Yeah.

Because they mean something to us. They do. They're important. And giving away the t-shirt, it's not like giving away a t-shirt. You're giving away this memory. Piece of your heart. Your piece of your heart.

Quilts. Do you have a favorite quilt with you at the moment? Or is it more a childhood kind of a thing? Okay, part of the reason I'm obsessed with quilts is I never had one. Because they are so American. Yeah. And my family's not American. Yeah, they didn't immediately embrace the quilt.

They didn't. And I don't think my parents ever really got it. It's like all this patchwork. And one of my best friends, very American, blonde, cute as pie. All-American gal. All-American gal. Her grandmother made quilts. And so she had all these quilts.

Shout out Kirsten. Just quilts everywhere. Yeah, like cool, beautiful quilts. With out Kirsten. Just quilts everywhere. Beautiful quilts. With memories and personalized. Memories, hugs and kisses sewn in. I've always had this under the radar jealousy and obsession of people with quilts. I can tell you by the end of this episode,

I think all your dreams could potentially come true. Oh my God. Yeah, I really enjoyed meeting these quilters. I met a few for this episode, and they were just great humans. Did you walk in with an attitude because you were doing this because I forced you to? A little. I don't like being told what to do.

So if someone suggests something, I'm like, no, I want to do what I want to do. There's that kind of pushback feeling. I always get that. So there was a little bit of like no I want to do what I want to do you know there's that kind of like pushback feeling I always get that so there was a little bit of that beavers yes like instead really important topics really Canadian really Canadian animal so yeah there was that so I did walk in with a little bit of this could be late it's quilts you know I don't care about quilts so it was a bit of that yeah but pretty soon, you know, I chose to do it. I did it and it took months and months and months, but I was won over pretty quickly by the quilting community of the United States. Good people, good humans. And also it's funny, sometimes with these episodes, you'll go

and interview someone and that's it. Other people really care that you're there and the conversation and dialogue goes on. They want to know how the interview went. They're sending you more emails with more facts to help me write things. And with quilting, these people were overboard with that. They were so helpful. It's on brand. They're into the details. That's why they make quilts. Yeah. Yeah. Detail orientated, quite quirky. And yeah, I love putting this together. So this is my journey into the world of quilts. Thank you for making me do it. You're welcome. It was a ding, ding, ding that you put it together. You sewed this episode together, much like the quilters. Yeah, I did. Because this episode idea came from Monica, I wasn't really sure where to start my journey into the world of quilting.

Was there a quilting store I could go to? Some kind of quilting club I could join? With so many questions banging around in my head, including what the heck is a quilt, I decided to turn my attention to what I knew, podcasting. Specifically, to a podcast about quilting. I am Ashlyn Downs and I am relatively new to quilting. Ashlyn has been quilting for about a year and a half, but that didn't stop her from picking up a microphone and also making a podcast called The Grateful Thread, which is now the number one quilting podcast on the crafts charts.

She seemed like a good place to start when breaking down quilting's importance in the American landscape. Traditionally, quilting has been very static. It's almost like you want your Lego set to turn out exactly like the Lego model. And so you're following the instructions to get that exact end result. And I'm seeing just a lot of newer, younger quilters really just going forward and wanting to make their own with their own stamp. Because I think a lot of antique quilts do look really similar. There's a ton of red and white quilts. If you think of a quilt, you think of traditional star shapes, eight point stars on a block.

And those are typically pieced together to form a full quilt. And younger, newer, modern quilters are kind of foregoing that and they are piecing things however they want. It's kind of hodgepodge and improv looking. We don't care to stick to just two colors in our quilts. We are mixing all kinds of prints and kind of just making it a piece that we want in our home and that has a place there. I was fascinated by this idea of a new movement of younger, more diverse quilters.

I'd imagine quilting was dominated by people in their 90s. No shade to anyone in their 90s. But it turns out that's not really the case. I started with that vintage quilt movement and I got just so hooked in during the pandemic. Rewind. What is the vintage quilting movement that you just referenced? So there have been several quilt revivals in the U.S. specifically, but more recently between like 2018 and it's kind of ending now, but the vintage quilt obsession. So turning them

into coats and bags and duffel bags and all of the repurposing of old quilts has kind of had a really big resurgence. So it was like how people got into craft beer and making bread at home. That was the same kind of thing with quilting, right? Yeah, same timeline too. I hadn't realized that quilting had made a sneaky comeback during the pandemic. Over in New Zealand, we mostly just got obsessed with sourdough. But millions of Americans had tried out their hand at quilting. Of course, there are still the traditional hotbeds that do it the most in America,

that are the most established. So as far as traditional quilts go, the Amish are really big producers of quilts. That's the immediate image that most people bring to mind when they think quilt is the Amish quilts. And then surprisingly, Wisconsin is a really big quilting hub. And then here in Salt Lake City and Utah, there are many, many quilt shops. And I'm sure people can put the math together about handicraft and stay-at-home moms and Mormon pioneers, but it's a lot of that culture. At this point in my quilting journey, I realized I hadn't actually clocked what made a quilt a quilt. So I'm jumping to someone who you're going to hear from in the second part of this little doc, Latifah, explaining what

a quilt is. Traditionally, a quilt is what's called a quilt top, which is basically what you see on the front of a quilt. Then there's batting or wadding, depending on what part of the world that you're in. In the United States, we call it batting. And then there's a backing. Those three layers are sewn together. That's what the actual quilting is, those three layers. And then it's usually encased in a binding that encloses the outer edges of the quilt. Okay, more from Latifah later, but back to Ashlyn. What is it about quilting that makes quilting such an obsession for many people here? a way to almost disassociate with the real world. And I'm sure that's kind of what quilting has always been. But in the past, it's been a way to repurpose your old textiles and piece them together and get more use out of them.

But today, I think quilters are gravitating towards it for stress relief. You have to be focused all in on it to have a good outcome. Yeah, we're living in an increasingly fucking stressful world, aren't we? For sure. You know, obviously there's quilting in New Zealand, but America seems to have a real affinity for quilting. Do you have any theories on why it's really taken off here and continued to have these resurgences over the decades? I think it lines up perfectly with your podcast. I think like most things, we did not invent it, but we're just so good at capitalizing on everything here. And that's really what I think the key to it being so large here is it's just a massive industry and the availability of textiles here, most things produced for the quilting world begin here.

So the culture around it is able to grow a lot more. And by a lot more, she means a lot more. It's a four and a half billion dollar industry. And there's 10 million quilters in the US and that's growing. Holy shit. They're all around us. Yeah, they're everywhere, David. The coolest part is that it's mostly just women-owned.

Aside from maybe the owners of the fabric manufacturing companies, the designers of the fabric patterns are women. The people that make the quilt patterns are women. The women run the shows. The women do all of the things. And it's an inviting space to men, but it's predominantly women. And in the year of Barbie and Taylor Swift, there's two of her. That's pretty cool. I'd come into this episode expecting to discover a bunch of grannies quilting by the fire and nothing against grannies. I love grannies. Rest in peace, Monica Farrier. But I was sort of delighted to find quilting by the fire and nothing against grannies I love grannies rest in peace Monica Farrier but

I was sort of delighted to find quilting as this thriving thing that's been taken up by so many younger Americans younger Americans who are making it their own next stop on my journey meeting some of these young successful quilters but first time to check back in with Monica. Monica Padman, not my dead gran. That'd be crazy, eh? If it was like my dead gran Monica suddenly appeared. Is Monica a popular name in New Zealand? Not at all. Not at all.

You and my dead gran are the only monikers I've ever met in my life. That's so crazy. Yeah, so rare. There are a lot of monikers in America, aren't there? I mean, it's one of those weird names that it's not rare, but no one has it. No one. And I feel like the people that have it, like Monochron Friends ruled. She's the only other one I know.

Yeah, it probably is. My gran. Yeah. It's a great name. Thank you. I mean, I'm stuck with David, which is the most generic name of all time. Well, it's classic. It's classic. You've got's classic. It's classic.

You've got something distinct. It's good. I used to hate it because I used to say it sounded like cardboard. Oh, really? It just, it like sounds the way cardboard is. Oh, that's such a funny association. Yeah, I hate it. Yes, that thing in you.

That's so funny. I hate it. Anyway, okay. I'm really grateful for this journey and I love learning about it. I've learned it's a young people's thing. Yeah. Young people love it. It's the same sort of feeling of peace and tranquility that I get from building Lego.

Some people make a puzzle. Yeah. Some people quilt. It's all this, literally the exact same thing though. It's you start with pieces and you're putting it together. You're building something from nothing. Cooking is like that too. I think that's what a lot of hobbies are.

It's the sensation of making something out of scraps. Yeah, you're constructing a thing. You've got a whole lot of nothing and then you make it into something and that makes you feel peaceful and good. And purposeful. Yeah, we all need something to do and something to see that we've made. I think that's why it's so weird working when we make this podcast. I think I can get weird sometimes because I've got a couple of friends in New Zealand

who are builders. And I kind of fantasize about that life where you can see the thing you've made. It's this physical object. Yes. Whereas when you make stuff and you kind of like throw it out, it's also digital. It's on the internet. Yeah. It's kind of weird.

And it's not something, sometimes you're like what am I making? I can't see it It feels more ephemeral, it comes, it goes it's just voices Like it's a really odd thing and then I also get little panics because, like Dark Tourist right, I made that, I don't have copies of that on a disc, it sits on Netflix

If Netflix disappears one day it's gone and it's like it never existed I don't have the hard drives of the data they're in some lockup somewhere so I guess there's this huge satisfaction sitting down

and I guess that's what I get out of Lego you sit down like a child and you make this thing it's like wow there's a thing I can see that I've made yeah

I think that's right it's actually kind of profound yeah what do you get the most urge like to sort of make cooking I get so much pleasure. We want to create.

Yeah, we want to create things. We really do. Our little monkey brains really want to. Yeah. But do the monkeys create? What do monkeys make? I feel they're not making. No, they're just throwing their poops and stuff.

They're throwing shits around, like making wacky videos for TikTok. That's kind of it. Putting their butts out. They're making videos for TikTok? I mean, they're all around TikTok. That's kind of it. Putting their butts out. They're making videos for TikTok? They're all around TikTok. My TikTok is mostly just when I scroll through, it's mostly unfed monkey videos. No, you're not. Yeah, it's just monkeys on there. It's amazing. People love videos of monkeys because they're so like us. Have you seen that video of a monkey where it's just perfect timing

where the camera's on the monkey, it picks up a bit of its shit, it flings it, and then the camera quickly pans and there's this 90-year-old woman sat there like feebly in a wheelchair and this big shit is just like... And the look on her face is like utter shock. No. And everyone around her family is just like trying to hold it together because it's so... It's so funny. Anyway. Wait, this reminds me. Yesterday, I went for breakfast.

I was walking back and all of a sudden I look down at my shirt and there's poop on my shirt. Oh, no. There is. A bird. There is. Like a bird got you? Yes. So I am panicking.

How long had you been walking, you think before you saw it? Great question That is actually the question I'm going to die with and not know the answer to How long was I walking with poop on me before I noticed it? And also some man said hi to me and I think maybe it was because of the poop He noticed because of the Probably Was it prominent? Were you wearing a white plain shirt and it was very clear that it was a bit of poop?

I was wearing a purple magenta-y kind of color sweatshirt, but it was obvious. And then I was like basically running the rest of the way because I had to get that off of me. Broken to a sprint. Basically, I took off my sweatshirt when I got home and just like dumped all this laundry detergent on it. And then I wondered if it was actually the granola I ate. Oh, you just dribbled a bit of granola. Yeah, right. Because that sort of has a texture.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And it was a really interesting granola. It had a lot of seeds. Your little tiny bits. a texture. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And it was a really interesting granola. It had a lot of seeds. Your little tiny bits. And honey, yeah. And it had yogurt. So it could have been that.

Kind of love the evolution. You just dribble a bit on and then you notice outside and just start running, just sprinting. I'm glad you noticed. Because if you thought it was a bird shit, other people probably thought it was bird shit as well. I wouldn't think granola. I think there's Monica. She's been shat on by like big pigeon because I walk around that area and there are times when there are just pigeons circling en masse and you could very easily be I just was really touching you want to check it's not on you sure

and it wasn't it's kind of surprising that we don't get shat on more by birds considering how many there are up there it's true and. And they go. They go. They're always pooping. Isn't it good luck to get pooped on? That's what they say. I think they say that so that you can tell your kid that so they stop their tantrum. So they stop crying. Yeah. Did you have good luck or bad luck the rest of the day? Actually, I had bad luck. I had a big bug event that happened right after that. The day did get better, but- You probably talked about this in armchair. What was the bug event? I was in a state.

I talked about it on Sync. I was at a coffee shop and there was this bug on my neck. And then I looked and there was that type of bug kind of everywhere. Oh. Oh, it was so horrifying. Little guy, big guy? Little-

Little natty thing, kind of. Bigger than a gnat. Okay. Kind of the size of a fly, but it wasn't a regular fly. Yeah, right. And it had weird, clear wings. Oh, God. It was disgusting.

Yeah, it was fly-y. I hated it. And I hated yesterday. Oh, I'm sorry. I learned something. And I don't know if this is real or fake or not, but in bug news, these scientists a while ago now, they got a cockroach and they put it in a maze.

Okay. And they basically let the cockroach learn the maze. Okay. So it was some cheese at the end or whatever cockroaches eat. Yeah. And so the cockroach would learn, and they did this with about 100 cockroaches, right? Okay.

So they had all learned the maze. And then they got those cockroaches, they blended them up, they fed them to another cockroach for lunch, and then that cockroach knew how to do the maze. That is not true. Are you serious? I think, look, it sounds so fake, but the only reason

it stuck with me is I think cockroaches don't have, again, I could be talking shit, cockroaches don't have a central brain. I feel like their body is like this network of neurons as opposed to the brain. And so maybe that muscle memory and those neurons

does stay in the paste and you feed it to another cockroach and they know the maze. Wait. So yeah, you had a cockroach that had never seen the maze before. You feed it the paste of a hundred bodies of cockroaches that knew the maze. Suddenly that had never seen the maze before. You feed it the paste of a hundred bodies of cockroaches that knew the maze. Oh, my God. Suddenly, that cockroach knows the maze.

Is this fake news, though? Look, it could be. Okay. I haven't checked anything, but I think what a great story. But this worries me because, you know, in certain parts of the world, people eat, well, people probably eat cockroaches, but they also eat crickets. And, in fact, a place, yeah, we've eaten them. And is it the same no i think the reason it works with cockroaches has got to go into like their network so it's their weird body

brains it's not like you could feed a cockroach a bit of human brain and suddenly it's chatting to you it's got to be the same like material as their body oh my god god. Crazy, right? This is... It could be bullshit. Okay. Stay tuned for more Flightless Bird. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Flightless Bird is brought to you by Aura, who make a very good electronic photo frame. I'll give them quite a few of these away now. And when I go to New Zealand I'm giving some to my brother and my parents. And that way I can harass them with the fun I'm having in America when I'm back here. But you can also do for your niece and stuff because you can

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Wow. I always know what I'm getting. It's going to be, oh, socks, wow, or underwear. That's all it ever is. God, it's tough. Family's hard. Whether or not your family specifically gives gifts during the holidays, you can define how you give to yourself. And the holidays are a great time to do that. So whether it's by starting therapy or just going easier on yourself during the tough moments or

treating yourself to a day of complete rest, remember to give yourself some love this holiday season. I am going to give a gift to myself and for the first time in the holidays ever, I'm going to do my little therapy session. Usually I just get annoyed with my family, but I'm going to zoom in. I'm going to do it. If you're thinking of starting therapy, you can give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online and designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to whatever your schedule is. You just fill out a quick questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist, and you can switch them at any time for no additional charge.

In this season of giving, give yourself what you need with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash bird today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash bird. betterhelp.com slash bird. Anyway, what are we talking about? Quilting. So yeah, I learned that quilting is a thing. Young people love it. It's not just grannies. So I thought, holy shit, I got to go and meet some of these quilters. Okay. The great thing about talking to Ashlyn, the quilting podcaster, is that she put me on to some other local quilters I could go visit. I spent the next week going back and forth with a few of them over email before deciding on two I could hang out with. Luke doesn't live too far away from me and knocking on the door a monster dog

greets me. It's Honeydew and they're an Irish wolfhound, the world's tallest dog. Standing, they can be over seven feet tall. After I make honeydew pose for some photos with me, talk turns to quilting. I'm Luke Haynes. I make quilts. The thing that I usually say is I'm a recovering architect dabbling in the world of quilting. You abandon the world of architecture? No, I love the world of architecture. I just hate working for developers,

fighting with the city on codes that change every year. So I love quilts because it actually is an architecture, the scale of which I can control. And what sets your quilts apart from other quilts? I was a very early quilter of figural work. So for me, I put a lot of images and portraits on quilts and that was not done so much. It was a system that I innovated. It was a type of work because a lot of quilting is decorative. A lot of quilting comes from this history of oral tradition and sort of grandma's teaching you this block that

you have to make. And I happened upon it sideways and just made a bunch of potentially not wonderful objects, but I didn't know there was rules to what not to do. So I put a bunch of pictures, portraits, self-portraits, et cetera, on there. And that would be the big thing that got me on the map. You know, that's where the museum started to collect my work. As well as museums, Luke's quilts have ended up all over America. His work covered by the likes of the New York Times and found in houses all over the US. Sometimes he leaves his quilts in public places for people to find and take home for free.

Of course, I wanted to see his quilts. So he takes me outside to his garage. So we're opening the garage here. The garage is opening. Oh yeah, no, I can see a lot of stacked quilts in here. So now you can see the over 300 quilts that are in my collection. It's quilt chaos in here. On one of his walls, a segment of one of his pieces. It's huge and just shows a leg and a foot, almost photorealistic. The detail is incredible. This is the bottom of a 30-foot portrait right here. So it's just the feet.

Oh my God, this is huge. And so this one is all made out of my own clothing. So primarily, the material that I use is reclaimed clothes for all the work that I make. I should note that Luke's wife, Nicole, is also here. And I'm saying this in the best possible way. They make a really quirky couple. Back inside, their whole house is filled with unusual, unique furniture. Their bookshelf is bright yellow and was sort of molded to look like it's almost

oozing down the wall. And they have two stools by the bench that are modeled after big bird legs. There's the bottom half of a giant chicken. And I think the stools by the bench that are modeled after big bird legs. There's the bottom half of a giant chicken, and I think the other's a big peacock. Nicole's also an artist. Sometimes this pair quilt together. Nicole's words of affirmation appearing on Luke's giant quilts. One of them's hanging on the wall. Giant quilted words telling me, you make sense. But I didn't care if I made sense. I wanted to make sense of quilting.

Where do quilts sit in the American psyche? Are they a big thing here? So quilts are a fascinatingly American craft. It's very true to Americana where they didn't come from here. We just took it and did it bigger. I won't say better because that sort of judgment, you know, I'll leave that to each individual, but, you know, there's this sort of history

of the Dutch settlers that came in and brought patchwork systems. And, you know, there's certainly no way to say who made the first quilt. It was probably a couple of buffalo hides stuffed together for someone in a cave somewhere. But quilting as a medium really grew as the sort of wealth of America grew. It became this status symbol within Americana. It had to do with buying

very expensive fabric and then cutting it apart and putting it back together. So both you had the money to buy things that were expensive and the time to cut it apart and put it back together, sort of at a time where we're both materials and time we're at a premium, right? This manifest destiny time where everyone is in covered wagons. So if you have time to make a quilt that's proving your wealth, that was the big boom for quilting in America. This was one of the very first income streams for women in the United States.

This was before women could have property. This is before women could have bank accounts. This was when women were sold as a object through marriage. But then all of a sudden, wealthier people wanted quilts. The men weren't going to make them. The women were going to make them. So the women could make them as a group, as this quilting circle, these quilting bees, and then sell them. So they had an excuse to congregate in a wonderful way, a way to make an income that had not been as present culturally. And so there's a lot of women's movement implicit in quilting.

Rewind and expand out. What defines a quilt? Because I think of a quilt as being like, it gets bits of material sort of stitched together into a big blanket. Is that the deal? Sure. And so like... You sound like... Sure. Well, let me say that. And the reason I sound a little uncomfortable is you're like, accurately kicking a nest of wasps because as you no doubt have found

through your sort of jaunts around America, subgroups have very distinct personalities and then can bifurcate into two personalities that are so close to each other that their definitions make the difference and then they're angry. So you're telling me that something as pure as quilting has controversial elements built into it? Oh, yeah. There are whole factions that are just angry about the language used. There are

art quilters. There are traditional quilters. There are modern quilters. You don't use the word blanket because you are just throwing the amount of work onto it because it's not a blanket, blanket because you are just throwing the amount of work onto it because it's not a blanket, it's a quilt. And so there's all of these vernacular differences that people have very large chips on their shoulders about. And it makes sense where it comes from, because if you spend 500 hours hand quilting a quilt with a needle and thread, and then somebody sends it to someone else to do on a machine, there's a very different level of input. So I understand the anger there, but it's funny. You're sort of saying, what is the definition? And I'm like, well, it depends on who your friends are. Luke is a quilter who uses an electric sewing machine,

controversial in some quilting circles. We'll leave your giant dog lying out there. Does the dog help at all in your quilting process? Or more just guarding the goods? See, more stands in the way, really. We leave Honeydew upstairs. They've been watching attentively this whole time. And we head downstairs to Luke's workspace, where the walls are lined with shelves full of material and gear. There's a giant table for sewing and the fanciest electric sewing machine I've ever seen. I'm coming from architecture and design. So I come to quilting laterally. And so I make quilts using machines because I believe in use architecture, you use screws and

not just sap from trees to make your buildings. And so I believe a conversation using a piece of technology can allow for a better result. So I use a sewing machine and I use a very fancy brand new sewing machine versus archaic ones for me because that's the conversation I want to have. Luke shows me some of his tools. So a rotary cutter is this circular razor blade. So you're able to push it across fabric and it cuts it in a way that is a hundred times more efficient than scissors. And as he starts sewing, it dawns on me how seriously he takes all this. What makes a good quilt? What does that even mean? That's a really good question. Thank you. Gosh, I mean, so here's, you know, my problem as an interviewee is I push back a little bit and say,

what makes a good quilt? And it's like, is it my opinion or is it the quilt police? And it's also hard as a person who sells these objects, right? Because I can make an entire body of work that I still own because it doesn't leave my house. And then I can make a couple of things that I'm just getting out of my brain and they sell instantly. And so like, I imagine some things that you love might not sell. And then some things you hate, suddenly people love them.

That must be a weird world to be in as well. Right, exactly. And so if you're asking which is a better one, is it just, you know what I mean? It's a hard question. I never knew the world of quilting would be so full of riddles. Now, I'm going to leave Luke for a bit

because while making this episode, I talked to a bunch of quilters and I want you to meet another one. My name is Latifa Safir. I've been sewing, I feel like my whole life, but I saw a quilt back in 2009 that was made from repurposed clothing and the batting was a old blanket and something about seeing that quilt clicked in my brain that I needed to be making it. I wanted to meet Latifa for two reasons, I guess. Firstly, her quilts are amazing, but I also had noticed the world of quilting seemed very white. Or at least when you start

YouTube quilting, it's very white. Latifah bucks that trend, and proudly. It is a 65-year-old middle to upper middle class white woman. It really is. Are there people in other demographics that quilt? Yes. Are there other demographics that are growing? Yes. There's a strong African-American quilt tradition. And you see we have African-American quilt group in Los Angeles, and you'll find those all over the country. I have quilters, not in my immediate history, but great-grandmothers who quilted. Do you find it's quite a social scene, or is it quite an isolating thing? Are you inside all day quilting? Are you out at quilts sort of gatherings? What does that look like? One of my favorite stories from my grandfather, when he talked about his mother and all of their friends would get together around a quilting frame

that at that time hung from the ceiling, they would get together and chew tobacco and gossip, and he would catch the needle under the frame. Of course, he's listening to all the gossip as well. So it's always been both a solo activity as well as had a social aspect where everyone comes together. And there's lots of group activities you can do with quilting as well. A few years back, Latifah formed the Modern Quilt Girls, so she could, as she put she put it meet her people other quilters she knew from online instead of just sharing patterns and quilts on the internet they could meet in person growing and learning from one another the first meeting of the modern quilt guilds had 20 people

now it's exploded i ask if i can see her quilts and she leads me through into another room where like in luke's, she has a large stack of quilts. She folds a few back to show me one of her favorites. It's incredibly colorful and incredibly intricate. There's a whole genre of quilts called t-shirt quilts where people literally cut up t-shirts and make a quilt. And most of them look like they just cut up t-shirts and put them into a quilt. So what I wanted to do with this quilt was make it, a t-shirt quilt would make it aesthetically pleasing. And so I picked colors.

I did a very specific color selection on the t-shirts themselves. These are all hip-hop related. The quilt is popping with a variety of colorful circles, the center of each one featuring various icons from the world of hip-hop. I spot NWA, Lauryn Hill, and Wu-Tang. We talked about the demographic for quilters, and they're generally not, you know, hip-hop hits. So it pulls in another theme for my life, which is hip-hop music, and I had fun, like, selecting all the fabrics and stuff around

it. It's covered in icons. I love it. Yes, absolutely. I love it, too. It's my favorite. And so this whole stack of quilts are projects that I'm working on right now. This quilt I'm looking at now, how long did this take to make? Because there's a lot going on in here. This is intricate. So I sew fast. And this is my sort of my life because not only am I a quilter, but I'm a quilt pattern and product designer. So I develop tools and things for quilting as well. So as well as making quilts and making them very quickly, apparently, Latifa also designs templates for other quilters to use. Well, I have to use my engineering degree for something. And so it totally comes in handy for tool design. When you started your engineering degree, what did you imagine yourself getting into?

Did you imagine yourself making these amazing quilts or was it something else entirely? So this is not very far from how I wanted my life to become. So I majored in engineering because when you're raised with very little financially, you make decisions based upon, especially during that time, you're told that you can't be creative and be financially successful. I actually had to lose my technology job in order for me to take on quilting full time. And I don't make quilts to sell quilts. I develop products to teach people how to quilt. And I also teach. I do a lot of teaching. I teach people how to quilt as well. And I've sort of been doing quilting, crafting, teaching my whole life. And I get to use a little bit of my engineering as well. So this is like the perfect mix for me, period. So I hang my engineering degree on the wall and

it's not a joke. It's a serious degree. My graduated magna cum laude, you know, so I took it seriously and I worked in technology for years. And then I'm like, well, maybe I can follow my heart and not just my head. Like Luke, Latifah's made quilting into a career. And as I look at the quilts stacked on the floor, I wonder if she'll ever stop quilting. If all the ideas in her head will ever manage to get out. When you're quilting, what sort of motivates you? Is it a sort of an idea or do you get like a certain obsession? What takes you on these journeys? So every quilter is very different.

I'm a very weird quilter in that for me, it's just about the vision in my head. I don't love to sew. And it's funny because quilting is absolutely my life. It's my occupation. It's my hobby. And the actual act of sewing does nothing for me. There's a lot of quilters you'll talk to and they say, I sit down at the machine. It was my day off. It was relaxed. I'm like, really? You're a weirdo. Well, for me, I don't love to sew, but I have a vision and I want to see that vision come to life. There's a rare quilter who does not have what's called a UFO and it's unfinished objects, or they also call them whips, which are works in progress. Occasionally I'll count mine and it's not single digits. Let's

just put it at that. While she's built her new hobby into a business, it does strike me how personal a lot of her work is. And some of that's not for sale. Before I left, I pointed to a small framed image in her workshop and realized it was actually a tiny quilt. It was a fist fashioned from bits of fabric. This quilt was actually made for someone who was killed due to police violence. He was having a mental health crisis,

and I made this quilt for his family, and this is made out of his clothing. That's incredible. Yeah, so all of the denim and the fist is made out of jeans. You can see the rips and the knuckles and all of that. Back at Luke's as I wrap this episode up and i don't mean to get too deep here but i've been thinking that for many quilters quilting is so much more than making an object to throw over a bed or couch or something to sell quilting is a way to tell

stories like the way i try to tell stories using this podcast quilting is the medium and soon that medium colors the way quilters see the world. In the same way I can't leave the house without seeing everything as a possible flightless bird episode, maybe quilters start to see nothing but their next quilts in the world around them. People like Latifah and Luke and Ashlyn, their world starts to be seen through the patchwork of a quilt. And as Luke leads me into his backyard, I realize that's sort of literal. What is this?

It's a big 35-foot geodesic dome that I was making for a museum exhibition. We're standing underneath this giant dome next to Luke and Nicole's veggie garden, and the dome is covered in a patchwork of quilts. Suddenly the world around me, my whole horizon, it's become a giant quilt. I'm covering it in pieces of quilts.

This is sort of the research and development moment where I'm trying out different methods of creating covers for this large-scale work. It seems you live within a quilt almost. Yeah, exactly. I'm trying to push back to my roots of architecture in creating sort of environments out of the vernacular of quilting. Turns out Monica was right.

Quilting is big in America. Coming into this world, I'd never imagined how vibrant and diverse it would be. Luke, Latifah, and Ashlyn, they're not what I pictured when I pictured a quilter. They all come at quilting from a different angle. And all of them seem to be very keen that others start quilting as well. Maybe if they have their way, one day America will just be one giant quilt.

For anyone that wants to get into quilting, what's your advice? Do they need to sort of go out and get a little sewing machine? Do they just need to start stitching stuff together? What's a good starting point? I say head down, buy a sewing machine or borrow one from your mom or your neighbor. In my short experience looking into this topic, I feel like when you

get into quilting, it's almost all or nothing. How far down the quilting rabbit hole do you feel that you've gone? I mean, I've gone so far down the rabbit hole that I'm running a podcast and I have turned it into a business. So I guess that's how far I am. So the beauty of the world that we live in now is that we all have access to YouTube University. But that's how a lot of people learn. I encourage you, you know, the better your equipment is, a lot of times the easier it is, but you don't have to have the most expensive thing, you know, buy a used machine off of Facebook Marketplace or borrow your grandmother's out of the back of her closet and get it cleaned and tuned up. The biggest thing is don't let not being perfect stop you. Don't let not being perfect stop you is a really good bit of advice

for quilting and also good advice for life in general, for whatever thing you might want to try your hand at. There's probably some big metaphor about quilts in America too. Each state a bit of fabric, stitched together in sometimes organized, sometimes haphazard ways. Different bits of material, side by side. Somehow the differences and flaws the thing that makes the final product so mesmerizing

and special thus concludes my journey into the american quilts they were neat right that was fun i loved going down that road meeting those awesome people yeah latifa was kind of amazing and so luke wrote to me and he has made you a quilt. My very first quilt? It's got, I mean, I haven't properly seen it yet, but your face features predominantly on it, which is kind of amazing. I think Dax is on there as well. He makes these big portraits

and he's got this amazing sewing machine. And so maybe tomorrow- And he uses different fabrics to make our face? Yeah, we actually, so I'm going to take you to pick it up tomorrow and I'll video it so we can put it on Instagram or something. Okay. But I'm curious, that could be a question.

What has he made it out of? Yeah. Like what is the material? Human flesh. Wow, oh my gosh, I'm so excited. So yeah, you're going to get your own quilt care of Luke. He's very, I mean, all these people were so, so passionate about quilts. The passion level was so, so high. I think that's so kind because it's not like someone who just goes and buys you

a book or socks or something that requires so much time and effort and energy and love. It requires that. Yeah, it's nuts. And he wanted to know when we were going to record this, that we needed to get it. And so I think it sort of took him sort of three weeks working on this thing to sort of get it finished. Because I think it's quite big as well. I mean, quilts are big, aren't they? They are, yeah.

I mean, I am having sort of a real-time realization right now that I think part of why I have been obsessed with quilts or why I had resentment against my family for not having quilts and annoyance that it wasn't part of the Indian culture, but it was a part of the American culture is because I do think I linked it to care and love and affection. And so if we didn't put that much emphasis on that and the American families did. Yeah, right. You know, that's intense. But also that is what quilting represents to a lot of people.

That makes sense. It's sweet. I also noticed I didn't actually explain where quilting came from originally in the dog at all. So I've just pulled it up. The earliest known quilted garment is depicted on the carved ivory figure of a pharaoh dating from the ancient Egyptian first dynasty. Whoa. So very old. In 1924, archaeologists discovered a quilted floor covering in Mongolia.

Okay. Estimated to date between 100 BC and 200 AD. Okay. So we're thousands of years old. In Europe, quilting has been part of the needlework tradition since about the 5th century. And obviously Europeans, when they came to America, bought it with them. And it's just gone off in all these different directions. Well, I liked what Luke was saying about covered wagons.

And it also showed a sign of wealth. That was very interesting. Yeah, I hadn't clocked that. Because obviously there'd be quilters. I think there's sort of these two camps. There's quilters that didn't have money just fashioning together stuff out of scraps. But then the other aspect of it was actually a sign of having money and prestige. So that came into it as well.

I mean, I guess you should expect it from any niche, but I love the idea of these warring communities of quilters saying, we're doing it right. You know, you doing it on a machine that doesn't count or you're doing it in this way that doesn't. Disney adults, there's always gangs. Yeah, gangs gangs of quilters we should get them all together and make them have like a big quilt off or something I love that Latifah is using it well for a lot of reasons obviously but one as a cultural movement totally that's so cool yeah she looks out and sees a world of quilters who are very white and she's like i want to like make these defined by things i like and things from my culture and she sews into all her stuff and some of it she keeps some of it she sells but yeah this piece

she'd made for a friend obviously that had someone pass away from police brutality it was like really beautiful it was like this little tiny quilt but it just felt really powerful as well. It was a fist, you know, and it was made from their clothing. And yeah, so she put so much of her own past and her own passions into it, which is pretty special. You know, a lot of people hang quilts because they are such beautiful pieces of art. Yeah, so it's not just something chucked on a bed. We'll find out how big your quilt is when we pick it up. Because it could maybe hang in the attic somewhere. It could be an attic hang. Yeah, I think's not just something chucked on a bed. We'll find out how big your quilt is when we pick it up because it could maybe hang in the attic somewhere. It could be an attic hang. Yeah, I think it should live in the attic for sure. Whether we drape it on the couch

or try to hang or really running out of wall space, but we could try. We could. You could also gift it back to your parents, sort of rub it in their face, give them a quilt. Oh, yeah. Like, here you go, mom and dad. You never got me one of these. Although, you know, what's funny is now my mom in her retirement, last time I was home, she had a sewing machine. She started quilting. So now she might start quilting. Well, it's also funny because my grandmother made all of her children, my mom and her sisters' clothes. She made me so many dresses and clothes and sweaters. She was really good at sewing. Yeah. But quilting was just not in the culture. Yeah. So miss out on that side of things and then skip that generation through your mom.

Exactly. And now here we are. I wonder what she's sewing, just different little bits and pieces. Yeah. She says she's hemming. Oh, so nice. She is thriving in retirement. It's really good. She loves it. But maybe you've still got your quilt coming. Maybe. It could happen. You know, don't write it off.

Christmas is on its way. Christmas is on its way. She might be working away at it right now. Oh, that would be very sweet, actually. So yeah, quilting. Okay. I loved this. This was really fun.

And I'm glad that you followed the good word of me. I did. I've learned myself that sometimes I should listen to what you say and that sometimes your topics. I also think it's neat the things that you look at and go, yeah, that's really frigging American. Yeah. Because there's things in front of me all the time that just sort of go over my head completely, whereas you're seeing all these other things. I have a different view of it having grown up here. But no, I've learned my lesson.

Okay. You say a topic, I'm going to go and do it. So you've become a lot more American. Okay, thank you. You've become more American because you listen to me. I like that. All right. Fun.

Thank you for that. Bye.