When we think of a quilt, the first thing that pops to mind is a large piece of fabric, composed of smaller pieces, made by the same person, or a collaboration between different people, joined together by stitching. Each piece of the quilt is meant to be unique in the way it looks and feels, representing the artistic and skillful perspectives of the hands that worked on it. Once joined together, these different pieces add up to the shared values of the community of people who worked on them, thus telling the story of this community through the quilt.
The Fabric of #MilieuxMake was inspired by the work of Joyce Wieland, merging between her exploration of various materials in her artwork, and her attempt to reclaim needlework as an art that requires high levels of skills and inventiveness. This opposes the traditional devalued perception of quilting being “women’s domestic work” or craftwork.
Through this project, Houda is retelling the story of the Milieux makerspace in a quilt that represents a maker curriculum. Pieces within this quilt will combine various materials, including knitted yarn, 3D printed fabric, embedded electronics and sensors and microcontrollers, etc. Each piece aims to present a different approach to making, and the skills and knowledge articulated from it, thus contributing to the overall “fabric” of maker cultures as experienced at #MilieuxMake.
Before starting this project, Houda attended different workshops at #MilieuxMake, including basic electronics, 3D modelling, Arduino programming and robotics. These workshops were the building blocks she used to start designing and making the quilt. As challenges arise, Houda collaborates with others within the makers community, both offline and online, in order to seek solutions and iterate her design. In doing so, she develops and advances her skills and knowledge in Maker Fundamentals, all of which add to the story meant to be told through the quilt.
