What Is Dirty Quilting? The No-Quilt-Police Approach to Making Quilts (Part 1)

Hi!

I recently came across the term “Dirty Quilting,” and I couldn’t decide whether I loved the name or the philosophy more!

I’d never heard the term before, so I went looking to find out what on earth it meant. While there doesn’t seem to be one official definition or rulebook for Dirty Quilting, I found the idea fascinating because, at its heart, it is about letting go of perfection, enjoying the process and, most importantly, getting the quilt finished.

It is quilting with a little less fuss, a little less worrying and, perhaps, a little more fun. What’s not to love about that!

So, let’s have a look at what Dirty Quilting actually means.

What Is Dirty Quilting?

Dirty Quilting isn’t really a particular quilting technique; it’s more of a quilting mindset.

The basic idea is simple: progress over perfection.

It’s about making a quilt without feeling that every seam must be absolutely perfect, every point must match and every fabric must have been carefully planned before you put the first piece under the needle. It can mean using scraps and leftovers, mixing fabrics that don’t necessarily “go”, improvising as you sew, accepting slightly wonky seams and using quick construction methods that help you keep moving.

Most importantly, it means getting the quilt finished rather than endlessly tweaking it.

And I have to say, I love that philosophy.

Because I think many of us have become so concerned with making the perfect quilt that sometimes we forget why we started quilting in the first place. We wanted to make something. We wanted to play with fabric, to sew, to create something we could use or give away, and most of all, we wanted to have fun.

 

So let’s look at some of the unofficial rules of Dirty Quilting.

Rule #1: Progress Over Perfection

This is probably the most important rule of Dirty Quilting: your quilt does not have to be perfect.

That slightly wonky seam doesn’t necessarily mean the quilt has failed, and a point that doesn’t quite match doesn’t automatically mean you need to reach for the seam ripper. Before you unpick something, ask yourself whether it is actually going to affect the quilt, or whether you are simply noticing it because you’re looking closely.

Is this mistake actually going to matter?

Because quilters are very good at looking closely. We can spot a mismatched point from three metres away, find the one seam that’s slightly wider than the others and, once we’ve noticed it, convince ourselves that we simply have to fix it.

But does anyone else notice?

And more importantly, does it actually matter?

There are certainly times when accuracy matters. Some quilt designs simply won’t work if the pieces aren’t cut and sewn accurately, and learning good quilting techniques is an important part of becoming a confident quilter.

But there are also plenty of times when we’re chasing perfection simply because we’ve been taught that a “good” quilt is one where everything matches perfectly.

Dirty Quilting invites us to question that.

(Image from: https://createwhimsy.com/projects/wonky-star-quilt-pattern/ )

 

Rule #2: There Are No Quilt Police

Now, this is probably my favourite rule.

The Quilt Police are those imaginary—or occasionally very real—people who seem to appear whenever someone does something differently from the “proper” way. They might tell you that your seam isn’t exactly a quarter inch, your points don’t match, your blocks aren’t all precisely the same size, or that you should have pressed a particular seam in the opposite direction.

They might even look suspiciously at your fabric choices and inform you that those two fabrics don’t go together.

(Image from: https://www.instagram.com/p/DCUslb3RiER/?img_index=2 )

Dirty Quilting politely declines to take the call.

But I have actually seen an example of Quilt Police behaviour that was far more extreme than any of those things.

Many years ago, I knew a lady in a quilt group who was making a Farmer’s Wife quilt. She had made nearly 50 blocks, which, if you’ve ever made a Farmer’s Wife quilt, you’ll appreciate is quite an achievement.

Unfortunately, another lady in the group got involved and decided that the blocks were wrong. The points didn’t match perfectly, and the blocks weren’t all exactly the same size, so she convinced the quilter that she needed to fix them.

Not just one or two blocks.

She convinced her to unpick every block, every seam in every block, and remake them with perfectly accurate seam allowances.

Nearly 50 blocks.

Imagine making nearly 50 of these… and then being told you had to unpick every seam.

(Image from: https://www.etsy.com/au/listing/188365836/farmers-wife-sampler-quilt-class-5 )

 

I can still remember thinking that was the most extreme example of the Quilt Police I’d ever seen.

Now, I’m not saying accurate seam allowances don’t matter. Of course they do. There are many quilts where accuracy is important, and learning good quilting techniques is part of becoming a confident quilter.

But there’s a big difference between knowing how to make a precise quilt and believing that every quilt must be precise.

That’s an important distinction.

You can know how to make perfect points and still decide that your next quilt doesn’t need them. You can know how to cut accurately and still choose to cut some scraps freehand. You can know how to make perfectly sized blocks and still enjoy making a quilt where the blocks are deliberately different sizes.

That’s not bad quilting.

That’s choosing how you want to quilt.

Perhaps that’s what Dirty Quilting is really giving us permission to do: learn the rules, understand why they exist, and then decide which ones actually matter for the quilt you’re making.

 

Rule #3: Scraps Are Welcome

If you’re a quilter, chances are you have scraps. Lots of scraps.

You probably have little strips you’ve saved because they’re too good to throw away, odd-shaped pieces left over from a favourite quilt, tiny pieces you’ve put into a box because surely they’ll be useful one day, and perhaps even a box containing the scraps from the scraps.

Dirty Quilting welcomes all of them.

There doesn’t have to be a carefully coordinated colour palette, and you don’t necessarily need a plan before you start. You can simply pick up a couple of pieces, sew them together and see what happens.

I rather like the idea that a scrappy quilt can become a kind of record of your quilting life. That little piece of fabric might be left over from a quilt you made for your daughter, while another might come from a quilt you made ten years ago. Another might remind you of a particular fabric shop, a favourite collection or a special project.

When they’re all thrown together, they become something new.

The scraps don’t have to match. They just have to belong to you.

 

Rule #4: Fast Is Good

Dirty Quilting also embraces techniques that keep you moving, not because fast quilting is necessarily better quilting, but because sometimes the less stopping and starting you do, the more enjoyable sewing becomes.

Think about techniques such as chain piecing, stitch and flip, strip piecing, string piecing, improv piecing and quilt-as-you-go. These are all ways of working that can help you spend more time actually sewing and less time worrying about every individual step.

Chain Piecing

Instead of sewing one pair of pieces, cutting the threads, picking up another pair and starting again, you simply keep feeding pieces through the machine. It creates a lovely rhythm where you can get into a real sewing groove instead of constantly stopping to snip threads and reposition your next pieces.

Stitch and Flip

Stitch and flip is a wonderful way to add scraps or smaller pieces without worrying too much about precise shapes. You can sew, flip, press and trim as you go, and it can be particularly forgiving when you’re working with scraps that don’t necessarily fit into a perfectly planned design.

Improv Piecing

This is perhaps the ultimate Dirty Quilting technique. Pick up two pieces of fabric, sew them together, add another piece, trim something if you need to and keep going. You don’t necessarily know exactly what the finished piece will look like, and that’s part of the fun.

String Piecing

String piecing is perfect for all those narrow strips and odd pieces that don’t seem to have another purpose. Sew them together and suddenly those scraps become fabric again, giving you a whole new piece to work with.

Quilt-as-You-Go

Quilt-as-you-go is another great way to break a large quilt into smaller, more manageable pieces and get some quilting done as you construct the quilt. For anyone who finds the idea of quilting an entire quilt on a domestic sewing machine a little intimidating, it can be a particularly useful approach.

None of these techniques are new, and they’re certainly not “wrong” or “cheating”. They’re simply different ways of working.

Dirty Quilting just gives us permission to embrace them for the speed, freedom and enjoyment they can bring.

 

Rule #5: The Finished Quilt Is the Goal

And this might be my favourite rule of all, because a beautiful quilt top sitting unfinished in a cupboard isn’t really a finished quilt.

It’s a quilt top.

A slightly wonky quilt that has been quilted, bound, washed, used, loved and perhaps even spilled on? That’s a finished quilt. And isn’t that what we’re ultimately trying to achieve?

We want to make things that are used: quilts thrown over the sofa, quilts on beds, quilts taken on picnics, quilts given to someone we love and quilts that get washed and washed again because they’re part of everyday life.

We don’t make quilts so they can sit forever in a cupboard because we’re afraid they’re not quite perfect enough.

Sometimes done really is better than perfect.

And that’s a philosophy I can definitely get behind.

 

Dirty Quilting Techniques You Can Try

If you’re feeling like giving Dirty Quilting a try, you don’t need to throw out all your existing patterns and start sewing completely randomly. You can simply incorporate a little more freedom into the way you work.

Try chain piecing to keep your sewing flowing, stitch and flip when you want a quick and forgiving way to add pieces, string piecing when you have lots of narrow scraps, or improv piecing when you don’t want to follow a plan.

You could also try quilt-as-you-go if the thought of quilting an entire quilt feels overwhelming, or simply take a pattern you already love and give yourself permission not to obsess over every tiny detail.

Perhaps your points don’t match perfectly. Perhaps your fabrics aren’t exactly what the pattern designer used. Perhaps one block is a little larger than another.

Maybe that’s okay.

 

What Dirty Quilting Is NOT

Now, before the Quilt Police call me, let’s make one thing clear.

Dirty Quilting does not mean making a quilt that is poorly constructed or unsafe. It doesn’t mean deliberately creating weak seams, ignoring grain when grain matters, skipping the quilting or throwing all your quilting knowledge out the window.

There are some things that matter. Your quilt needs to hold together, your seams need to be secure and your construction needs to be appropriate for what you’re making.

The trick is learning to recognise the difference between precision that matters and precision that simply makes you feel like you are being a “good” quilter.

If you’re making a complicated traditional block where the design depends on perfectly matching points, then yes, accuracy is important. But if you’re making a scrappy quilt where nothing is supposed to match, perhaps you don’t need to spend half an hour unpicking a seam because two points are a little bit off.

That’s the freedom Dirty Quilting offers.

Not “nothing matters.”

But rather:

“Not everything matters equally.”

And I think that’s a very useful thing for any quilter to remember.

So… Would You Try Dirty Quilting?

I’m still not sure whether I love the name Dirty Quilting or just love what it represents.

But I do know that I like the idea of giving ourselves permission to relax a little: to use the scraps, stop worrying about whether everything matches, leave the occasional imperfect seam alone and remember that the point of quilting is not to prove how perfectly we can sew.

It’s to make something.

And enjoy making it.

Perhaps that’s what Dirty Quilting is really about.

Less perfection. More progress. More sewing. More finished quilts.

And there’s certainly nothing dirty about that.

 

Coming Next…

But I think there’s another side to Dirty Quilting that is even more interesting.

What happens when you stop worrying so much about doing quilting the “right” way? Could deliberately relaxing your standards actually help you finish more quilts, use more of your stash and enjoy your sewing more?

In Part 2: Dirty Quilting — How to Stop Overthinking and Start Enjoying Your Quilting, we’ll look at the mindset behind Dirty Quilting, when it might be exactly what you need, and I’ll give you a 30-Minute Dirty Quilting Challenge to try.

I’d love to know what you think. Have you ever been the victim of the Quilt Police? Or have you ever looked at a perfectly good seam and decided, “You know what? That’s good enough!”?

Let me know!

Enjoy your week,