I carried my quilts into a gallery in a laundry basket. What did y'all bring yours in?
Now I'll tell this on myself.
I drove up to a little gallery with my quilts folded in a plastic laundry basket, still smelling like the house, and stood there in the doorway like I was delivering somebody's dry cleaning. Girl at the desk looked at that basket, looked at me, and I thought well, I drove two hours. Long story short she called the owner out and the owner said "unfold them." So I did, right there on the floor.
Turns out a laundry basket is not the sin I thought it was, but I want to know how y'all did it. First time you walked your work into a gallery, what did you carry it in? Portfolio case, cardboard, quilted bag, your arms, your husband's truck? And did anybody make you feel small about it?
I ask because my granddaughter keeps telling me to buy a proper portfolio bag and I keep telling her I've got one, it's just green and holds socks. Tell me I'm wrong, or tell me you did worse.
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I brought a stone piece in a milk crate with a folded towel under it. Should have been a blanket. Halfway through the parking lot the towel slid and I felt the edge catch, and that little chip is still on the underside where nobody looks.
The basket is fine. What matters is how it was folded going in. Quilts crease, and a crease left in one long enough sets hard. I'd want them rolled on a tube for anything over a short drive, or at least folded along different lines each time.
The part you already got right is unfolding them on the floor. Half the people who walk in want to stand there and tell you about the work. You let the work do it.
That chip is a receipt, honestly. You paid for the lesson and you got to keep the piece.
The folded towel is the real trap and almost nobody thinks about it. Towels fold, towels slide, and then a stone corner is carrying its own weight on one point. I learned this with a welded piece, an old boiler plate I dragged across two countries in the back of a borrowed van, and it arrived with a corner turned to butter. I still show it. Nobody has ever once asked.
But you are right about rolling, and I would add: the tube should be bigger than anyone thinks. Thin tube, tight roll, you have just invented a new crease. Ask me how I know.
Well now, a boiler plate drug across two countries in the back of a borrowed van. That's a story all by itself, and I want to hear the rest of it sometime.
But you done taught me something with that thin tube. I'd have rolled mine tight as I could get it, thinking tight was safe. Never would have thought a big loose tube was the answer. See, cloth forgives you. Quilt in a tight roll just creases and I can press it out. Stone don't press out.
And mm-mm, "nobody has ever once asked." Ain't that the truth. I've got a scorch mark on the back of a quilt from my grandmother's iron and not one soul in fifteen years has noticed it but me. We the only ones keeping count, honey. Everybody else just looking at the whole thing.
Now honey, that little chip on the underside is going to be there when you're gone, and I mean that as a compliment. I've got a quilt with a scorch mark on the back from my grandmother's iron. Nobody sees it. I know it's there. That's the signature.
You're right about the creases and I've been guilty of it. I fold mine the same way every time because that's how they fit in the basket, and then I wonder why a line sets up in the same place year after year. Rolling on a tube for the long drive, I'm going to try that. My granddaughter's fixing to move and there's going to be cardboard tubes everywhere, so I may as well put them to use.
But I want to hear about that stone piece. Stone takes a different kind of nerve than cloth. Cloth forgives you. Stone doesn't.