I Am GenQ: Jacquie Gering

Reinvent how you live, and it’s bound to show up in your quilting, sooner or later. That’s the new reality for quilt designer and author (more on that later) Jacquie Gering after her recent move from the rolling hills of northeast Kansas to the urban canyons of downtown Chicago.

In late July, Jacquie’s husband, Steve, got his dream job as “chief of leadership” for the mammoth Chicago school system. So they—well, let’s be honest, people, Jacquie—began the complex process of uprooting and moving a family, a dog and Jacquie’s design business, Tallgrass Prairie Studio, from a sprawling three-floor country home to a three-room city apartment.

One of the biggest changes has been in her physical quilting space. Her old studio in Kansas occupied the entire basement floor–roughly 800 to 900 square feet–with adjacent office and storage rooms and a cutting table “the size of a double bed,” she says.

Now, she’s got a 9’ x 10’ room, with a long closet at one end. The new cutting table is actually the dining room table, and she’s compensated for the lack of studio space by going up, making good use of the apartment’s high ceilings by installing vertical storage wherever possible. (Check out her blog post about the new studio and see how she’s gotten the most out of a small space.) And her husband cheerfully heads off to work most mornings with thread bits on his suit.

“If you love to sew, you make it work,” she says.

Jacquie says she and Steve are also really enjoying how walkable their new neighborhood is, with restaurants and shops literally a few steps away.

One thing Jacquie doesn’t have to reinvent, though, is her strong bond with the modern quilting movement. Many will know Jacquie from her work with the Modern Quilt Guild. She serves on the MQG board and is the former president of the Kansas City MQG chapter. The KC guild members were like family, she says, and people she’s met from the Chicago chapter are already feeling like sisters.

“It’s like going from one family to a new family. I can’t wait for the first meeting!” she says.

Being in Chicago also has the unexpected benefit of occasionally getting to see more of her two sons, both of whom are talented musicians. Ben, 22, works for The Devil Wears Prada, a Christian metal band based out of Chicago. Her other son, 20-year-old Jon, was invited to fill in for the band’s keyboard player during an upcoming tour of Australia, so he’s on sabbatical from college and rehearsing with the band.

It might be fair to say that Jacquie’s environment seems more matched now with her spare, edgy, modern style. The logo for Tallgrass Prairie has been redesigned to reflect her urban setting, and she’s even started a new quilt, Bridges, inspired by all the train trestles and bridges that she and her black Lab, Bruno, walk under on their daily travels.

The move to Chicago almost seems a literal metaphor for a lot of recent business activity, not the least of which is her new book, Quilting Modern, Techniques and Projects for Improvisational Quilts (Interweave, April 2012), written with Seattle quilter/blogger Katie Pedersen of SewKatieDid, is available for pre-order on Amazon, and will be available next spring. The two connected via their blogs at a time when Jacquie had a book proposal but because of family illness, decided not to pursue it; and Katie had been approached by a publisher, but had not fully fleshed out her idea.

“I flew out to Seattle and made sure she wasn’t a knife-wielding stalker and we hit it off right away and decided to do it together,” Jacquie says, joking. “(But) Katie says it best: It’s the best blind date she ever had.”

Jacquie’s Atomic Connections quilt (with its blazing, traffic-orange and white color combo) was also recently featured in Magic Patch, a French quilting magazine. And she will soon tape a segment for the PBS show, Sew It All TV.

Just a sign of the new times?

“Every day’s a new day. New things happen and…the new way we’re going to live is definitely going to change me.”

Jacquie by the quotes

What she misses the most:
“I guess my mom and dad. My mom and dad actually live at the bottom of our hill. Essentially we were on the same property. I talked to my parents everyday and that’s not happening now.”

What she doesn’t miss at all:
“Having to drive 40 min to the nearest grocery store (one that has avocados). I can walk to the nearest grocery store if I need to.”

What her sons think about her quilt designs:
“My sons are both amazing and creative, and they both keep me on the modern path. I hear this from them more often than I would like: ‘Mom, that’s a little too close to Grandma’s quilt.’  In other words, ‘That is so not modern, mom.’ They push me beyond where I would go myself. I’ve got two 20-something boys who appreciate quilts and how great is that?”

On working with her fave color, orange:
“I had (Atomic Connections) on the design wall maybe 20 times. Each time, people commented on the color. They kept asking if it had to be done in that ugly safety orange. So I kept putting it away because it kept getting that negative feedback about the orange. Finally one day, I took it out and said, ‘I love ugly (beautiful) orange,’ and I finished it. Sometimes you just have to go with what you love. ”

On being seized by inspiration at odd moments:
I was driving down Highway 71 in Missouri…and the entire highway was in construction. Every overpass was under construction. So I’m having to slow down under all these underpass thingies. One was almost finished. They had these big concrete panels that were fit together…and they had this amazing pattern the way they were fit together. So I pulled over, got my sketch book out, and sat there and sketched the underpass.”

Her favorite guilty pleasure:
“I try so hard to stay away from them, but I love the salt and vinegar potato chips. They are just like…mmm! When I get a craving, I walk by them in the store and just look at the package for awhile. If I want to celebrate something, it’s salt and vinegar potato chips and a glass of wine.”