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Kitty Wilkin

You’re listening to the podcast and on today’s podcast. I have the distinct pleasure. I know I say that every time, but man, do, I mean it. I’m speaking with Kitty Wilkin. Kitty is a quilter. And she goes by the handle night quilter on Instagram. You’re going to want to look her up. 

She makes the most beautiful, modern, fussy cutting, intricate quilts. And even if you’re not a quilter, you’re going to appreciate the artistry that you see there. But not only that Kitty is also this incredibly open, vulnerable and joyful human, and she is so much fun to be around. You know, when you meet somebody And their light is just shining and they’re not. 

Hidden. And how amazing that is to experience. That’s what it’s like being around Kitty. And so I have been really excited to talk with her. Several years ago, I met Kitty at a retreat that I went to on the coast of Maine. And I bonded with her almost immediately. One of the topics that we talk about today is a little bit taboo. We talk about orgasm. A couple of months ago, Kitty put a post on social media about orgasm. And it relates to her quilting journey, which is such an interesting connection, but you’ll find out more about that as you get into the podcast. 

And she put this post on Instagram and it stopped me in my tracks. I was just scrolling along and I see this post that Kitty put out there. And I just thought what a brave thing to do. Like, she just was really honest and really open And wanting to bring. Um, sort of normalize the conversation around sexual pleasure and I sat there in awe, and thought what a beautiful thing to do. And so we talk about that in today’s podcast. We also talk about how Kitty took this form of art, this creativity, this making that she does, which is quilting. And she talks about how she takes that and she pairs it with things that she wants more of in her life. And she makes a connection between the the two so that she is doing this thing that brings her so much joy. And also bringing more of something else into her life. And I just think that it’s such a beautiful concept. In fact, she started a membership all around that called the Quilt Your Life crew. 

And we talk more about what that journey looks like for her. I can’t wait for you to listen to this episode. This will not be the only time that Kitty is on my podcast. I really enjoy her as a human. And I think you are going to, too. So let’s get started. 

 You are listening to the In Kinship podcast. And I am your host, Tina VanDenburg. The In Kinship podcast is a podcast for makers or creatives. Who crave a vibrant joy filled beautiful life on their own terms. 

And now a word from our sponsor. Today’s podcast is sponsored by. My Lovely Muse. Christina at My Lovely Muse has a passion for sustainability. She teaches classes in mending and sustainability. And she also has a line of products that you can purchase. Things like… cloth napkins, cocktail napkins, beeswax wraps. Bees wax wraps do it yourself kits, reusable snack and sandwich bags, and more. You can find out more about My Lovely Muse. At mylovelymuse.com. And that’s M Y L O V E L Y M U S e.com. 

And now onto our show. 

Tina: Today I have kitty wilkin with me. Welcome Kitty.

Kitty: I’m so glad to be, I love what you’re doing. I think it’s such a really important thing to recognize that we can control the way we live our lives and live you know in a positive way,

Tina: right, I have to share the day that I met you with my audience because it was a powerful day for me. And I, I think it’s amazing how we can touch other people’s lives and not even maybe know it. But you touched mine in a particular way, and I want to share that story.

So I think it was 2017. I’m not entirely sure, but it was somewhere in that timeframe and I was attending A Gathering of Stitches slow fashion, retreat in Maine. And you were also a participant at that retreat. And I remember the first night we were sitting in a circle and I was maybe 38 at the time, and I had been suffering, I guess, I don’t know if it’s suffering.

My hearing had begun to deteriorate in my early thirties, and I’d gotten to the point where it was very hard for me to hear in a group setting. At the time, I had just become a stay-at-home mom. But prior to that, when I was in my work setting and when I was in work meetings, I couldn’t always tell what was going on.

So I had gone from being this very dynamic, engaged, talking human, like I had an opinion about everything and I was not afraid to share it and also hold space for other people. But anyway, um, I had gotten to the point now where I didn’t know what was going on in the room all the time anymore, and I’d become very quiet and I felt very isolated and I didn’t know how to handle that. And I was not ready at 38 to get hearing aids. Right. But I was becoming very isolated and it was an awful feeling. And I’ve gone to this retreat and we’re sitting in this circle and I’m almost at the end of the circle and you’re somewhere in the middle.

And I remember this very much so because you’re going around and I can’t hear what the people on the first half of the circle are saying. These people that I wanna connect with, these people that I wanna be part of the situation with that I don’t know what they’re actually saying. And so that’s coming around and it comes to you and you stop and with such beauty and you say, I’m hard of hearing, so if you’re gonna speak to me, I need you to look at me directly and I need you to slowly and enunciate and whatever it is you say, I dunno, this is what I imagine you said anyway. And I was like, oh, this is somebody near my own age. I think you’re a bit younger than me, even, near my own age, who had the ability, and this, gosh, this is gonna tie into a lot of the topics we wanna talk about today, but. Not only did I have shame around the fact that I couldn’t hear, but I had a hard time as a woman claiming that if you wanna talk to me, you have to look at me.

Rather than be like, I can’t hear you, so I better figure out a way to find out how to hear you. Right. And you stood there with such boldness and beauty and just said, if you wanna talk to me, this is what you have to do any, I can’t think of the word I’m trying to think of here, but without any like

Kitty: Apology not apologetic.

Tina: Right,

Kitty: That is a beautiful story and I just want you to know for your own sake, it took me a number of years to be able to get to that point. My hearing loss started at age 21. So at that point I was probably, I don’t know, not 40 yet, but close to it. So it took me a long time to be able to do that because I think, especially as women, we are not taught that our needs can be like, it feels like you’re asking a lot when you’re asking someone to accommodate you, right?

But when you are disabled, if you wanna use that word, if you are hard of hearing, that is the way you can engage in society. And

Tina: Yeah,

Kitty: you know, as we, as we discussed, it’s much easier for people to know that right off the bat, to know that I’m not a jerk. I’m not ignoring you, I just legit can’t hear you unless you do these X, Y, Z things.

And then I can more,

Tina: right. Not always. That hit me in those two particular ways. It hit me as like, I didn’t have quite as much shame about the fact that I have this old person’s disease, whatever that means. Right. But I have some kind of a feeling around that, that I should be elderly if I’m gonna be hard of hearing.

And so there’s that struggle. And I didn’t, like I said, I didn’t have hearing aids yet. Um, I got those for my 40th birthday and they changed my life, and I’m very grateful that I had ’em. But even purchasing them was really hard. It was like, all right, I just turned 40. Now I get bifocals and hearing aids.

And it was like, and I also greyed early, so I was like, are you kidding me? What is going on? 

Kitty: I got my hearing aids on my 21st birthday, so that’s funny. Like, on my 21st birthday, I got a hearing aids. I was not hap, I was pissed. I mean, I, as you probably

Tina: Yes.

Kitty: imagine, I was like, what is this?

Tina: Yes,

Kitty: We all have something and I’ve learned so much through it.

And part of it is self advocacy, 

Tina: Yeah. So I wanna thank you for being that person that was able to do that and to show me those two different aspects. That aspect of like not being apologetic for needing something because , I just to be really raw here on the podcast, I spent my whole life making sure that I didn’t, nobody had to do anything extra for me, right?

I could take care of it all myself. And I think that fits into my personality naturally as a do-it-yourself kind of person anyway. But I know that I’ve worked a lot in my thirties and up into my early forties here, I’ve done a lot of internal work on figuring out how to know that I am a lovable human, even if I have needs, especially if I have needs.

Kitty: I am still learning that that is my, the work of the past few years as we’ll talk about. But yeah, what a lesson to learn. What a lesson to learn.

Tina: Oh, so that was my introduction to you, and I had a delightful week with you that week. I remember swimming in the ocean on the coast of Maine, and I’ve been watching your journey ever since. And I wanted to talk to you today because one you embody with your work. Exactly. What I wanted to do with this podcast is an idea of we have the ability to bring pleasure into our lives, on our own terms to some degree, and that we have the ability to have more control over our experience than we allow sometimes.

And so I wanna talk about that. Let’s begin at your beginning.

Kitty: it.

Tina: Who inspires you to be a maker and what did that process for young Kitty look like?

Kitty: That’s a fun question. So I grew up in a very creative family. Um, no quilters, but my mom made all sorts of things like crafts, and she made our hall Halloween costumes every year. I was the oldest of four kids. She made her own wedding dress, she made all sorts of stuff. And at one point she tried to convince me, I think I was 14, that the way to have clothes that fit me the way I like and the style that I like was to make them myself.

And I picked this horrible, like grape print, quilting cotton fabric and made a skirt, which I didn’t even wear skirts. I don’t know what I was thinking. I just thought it would be simple because it’s like a circle. that, that was just the beginning of the end. And I was like, Nope. But the creativity and the desire to make and create definitely comes from my mom and my upbringing there.

And then I married into a family with a quilter. My husband’s grandmother, uh, Grammy, June, was an incredible quilter, did most of her quilting by hand, um, handpieced, hand quilted, mandala, intricate traditional quilts. And so when I met her and saw her work, I was in awe, but never thought that’s something I could or want to do until a cousin gave us a very simple patchwork quilt when our oldest was born.

And that was the little spark that made me realize that not all quilts have to be these super intricate things. And that was the beginning of my deep dive into becoming a quilter.

Um, and so I started showing when my kids were babies. Thus, my Instagram handle is Night Quilter. I grab a needle and thread once the kids are in bed, and it was very much my, my quality time. That was a time and my life when life was just chaos. You know, like when you have an infant and toddler and then another baby and you don’t have control.

Of anything. And you know, talking about control, that’s a conversation. We could go deep into that one. You know, we don’t ever have control over anything. But in that phase of life, even drawing with my kids, it almost always would happen that one of my children would want to draw on my drawing. Like there was nothing that was just mine.

And so quilting became that thing for me. They would go to sleep and I would go and I could, I focused very much on precision and being meticulous and perfect points and matching and fussy cutting, meticulous cutting. Um, that was where I had control and where I could have a creative outlet that was just for me.

And then as my kids got older, and this is following the journey and I became more aware of the fact that I, as you talked about, am an autonomous human who has needs, and that not only is it okay for me to meet those needs, it’s a really good thing for me to meet those needs. Um, and began, began to let go of this desire for control in life in general.

Tina: Right.

Kitty: It helps me to branch out. I mean, just, you know, not thinking that, oh, my kids are crying. I’m clearly failing as a mother, you know, or, oh, the house is a mess. I’m clearly failing. All those shoulds. That story that we tell ourselves about, the only way to be successful as a mom is to do these x, y, z things that I cannot do.

And so once I let go of that a little bit more, I’m still working on it, but, and, uh, my kids got a little bit older, so they started to sleep at night a little bit. I found that my quilting style actually changed to be a little more loose and more improvisational. Um, and then started reflecting life, when my third child was born, my youngest, um, I started a quilt for him. That was kind of the foot in the door of my whole journey into tying life together with quilt making. And that both helped me let go of the desire to control because we don’t decide what happens in life. You know, as much as you plan life happens the way life is gonna happen.

Uh, so when life is determining what colored fabrics go next, you don’t have much control over that. And so that was a really good practice. It was good for me to do that and to go into it knowing that this is what’s gonna happen and I’m practice grace when it doesn’t go the way that I think it should or that I think it, I want it to.

Um, But yeah, so then I started quilting when my kids were young and started blogging about it. And then Instagram started and people started asking if I was releasing patterns. And I said, oh, okay. And then I started releasing patterns and now I’m pattern designer and lecture and teach workshops to guilds and at conferences and do photography.

And I love it. It’s, you know, my job I use with quotes, but I love it.

Tina: I love that when you saw these beautiful, probably very masterful quilts that your grandmother-in-law had created your like, That’s way beyond me. I’m not, it’s beautiful. I can’t even imagine. And then when you saw something simpler, you were able then to imagine that you could go into that realm.

And as somebody who has now seen the quilts that you create, they are incredibly intricate and incredibly complicated looking, at least from somebody who’s not a quilter, right? They’re just amazing. Like you talk about precise cutting and sewing. You can see that in what you produce. And I thought, oh, isn’t that interesting?

Like, this is a side note, we probably should have five podcasts, episodes, the two of us. But isn’t it intriguing

Kitty: Probably.

Tina: how we sometimes have to see something that feels more doable in order to imagine beginning it? And then you’ve, you’ve truly ended where I would imagine you saw your, your grandmother in-law’s, quilts or not ended. But you’ve truly come to that point.

Kitty: Definitely. And it, it’s funny that you say that because also her whole style, she’s very matter of fact. And so I remember the second or third quilt I made, uh, was for my sister-in-law. She was getting married and there’s a pattern called the double wedding Ring Quilt. And I had heard of it. I was like, but it’s a lot of curves.

If I had been a quilter at that point, I would’ve known that that’s one of those quote unquote hard quilts. Like that’s challenging. Those curves. I chose like gold polyester fabric. Like it was all the choices that you would not make if you knew any better. But then talking to Grandma, cuz at this point my foot was in the door, like I’d made a quilt or two out of squares.

And I was like, oh, can I do this? And she was like, of course you can. Like of course you can just follow the pattern. You’re good. You’ve got it. And so she. If she were alive now to see what I’m making now, I’m sure she would say something like, of course you are. Just like, of course. But at that moment, you know, seeing her quilts.

Exactly. It was one of those like, you need the stepping stones to get there. You need the little, the little nudge so that you can stop telling yourself that story, that this is beyond what I can do. Because you can do anything. Just start.

Tina: Absolutely. So tell me a little bit about, um, your Quilt Your Life journey, because if I understand correctly, that is where the bulk of your work is now. Is that true?

Kitty: Right now? Yes, very much so. Um, I began my Quilt Your Life journey when my third child was born and it actually started as a joke. Um, I was nursing him in the kitchen one morning and realized somehow in my sleep deprived stupor that he was one month old, completely joking around. I mentioned to my husband like, oh, what outfit should I dress him in for his photo shoot?

You know how people do those sticker photo shoot, like, right, right, right. Now this was totally a joke cause I had tried it with my second child and didn’t make it past month four, but so Garrett joking around back was like, well aren’t you gonna make a quilt block for him every month for his photo shoot?

And I, I could have just laughed and shared in the like, poor third child, you know, have a blank baby book, no pictures. We don’t know how old he was when he did anything but this idea. I had to do this now. I made a quilt for him his first year where every month I made one block and one block a month was plenty for a mom of three kids under the age of five.

I did a photo shoot with him each month with the block of the month, and I also wrote a blog post with his developmental milestones. So I have better records for Finn than I do for any of my other children, which is funny. But then once I started, once I had that quilt, it got me, like I was in the rabbit hole now.

And so next I made a summer adventure quilt where my goal was to do more of the things I love to do, but that are really challenging to do because of the way life is set up. And so I love hiking and getting out in nature, but with three young kids, it’s really hard to get the mobilized. Um, I have friends who also like to hike, so I decided that I’d make a quilt tracking our summer adventures where we would earn a block for every hike. We earned a tree for every hike. Um, we earned an ocean block for every trip to the beach or the lake or swim. And we went with friends. So our kids didn’t complain. They all had kids to play with. Moms got out sometimes dads got out.

We hiked. It was, it was wonderful. We did more hiking that summer than we have since or before. But then, so then after that, I. You know, the first two projects were very much focused on family and my children, and then I started moving toward, let’s see, what was next? Next was my running quilt. Running is something that I had a story that I was not a runner for most of my life.

I was a swimmer. I was a competitive swimmer and would run for sports, but not just like leave your house and run for a certain amount of time and come back. But living in rural Maine as a mom of young kids, running was the most accessible. So I ran sometimes for fitness. I needed it. One time on a run, I was like, hi runners.

Hi. Feeling great, feeling good thinking, man, why can’t I do more of this? Like, I feel so good when I do it and I feel so good when I’m done. But that getting out of bed and getting, getting out there is so hard and I realized, well, it has worked in the past when I tie it to a quilt. So what if I plan a quilt where every single day I earn a strip of fabric, keep it super simple.

Every single day I earn a strip of fabric and it will color coordinate to the number of miles I ran, and if I didn’t run, it’ll be a skinny strip that’s either I did cross training exercises or I did nothing. And so I did. I made that quilt in 2020 and it was very powerful because not only did it get me out running more consistently, as we remember, 2020 was also the year covid hit.

It probably saved my life and I’m not gonna like when. Get all emotional thinking about it. But so like when the pandemic started and we transitioned to three kids at home, virtual school, five of us under one roof, 24 7, no longer having any of the outside help that I had established to help make this whole thing manageable.

It was just a lot. And I had every reason not to run, but because this quilt was going, I got out and run, ran many a day and that was the only time I was alone.

Tina: Mm-hmm.

Kitty: It was physical fitness, which is super important for general health and wellness, and also was a way to emotionally process everything that was going on in the world.

Tina: Right.

Kitty: So that was a big summer or a big year, really. Um, Making that quilt was what really helped me understand the power behind the positive feedback loops that get created when you tie life together with quilt making. And so that was awesome. So it went on from there. And I have many more, but some examples as I, when I turn 40 leading up to my 40th birthday, I was really feeling the weight of that societal again, all the stuff, the stories that we get from society, like over the hill, I remembered, you know, when I was 20 and working in an office and someone would have a 40th birthday party and they were like grave stones or something like, like ridiculous stuff.

And so that was in my head of like over the hill and so I was like, you know what? Forget over the hill. Screw over the hill, whatever kind of language you wanna use, I’m gonna keep climbing mountains. So I decided that on my 40th birthday, I was gonna try to climb 40 mountain peaks before I turned 41.

And I did it. I did it and so I made an improv mountain quilt block for every mountain, and it was color coordinated based on the elevation of the mountain, cuz I’m a data nerd and all of that. But it was an incredible project that also, again, got me through really difficult times because that year was not smooth.

Like literally one month after I started the project, I threw out my back the worst that I ever have. Like I could not move on my own. I could not go to the bathroom on my own for four days. It took me a month of physical therapy to be able to hike again. But because this project was underway when I went to physical therapy, it wasn’t just, okay, I need to regain mobility.

It was like, when can I run again? When can I hike mountains with a pack? When can I do this? And it gave me a goal that really helped me get through that. And then a couple months later, so then I’m hiking mountains again and a couple months later I went from my first mammogram, cuz you turn 40, you’d be responsible.

 But that ended up, you know, being a path down. I needed a more imaging and I needed a needle biopsy and then that needle biopsy went wrong and I had multiple hematomas. So then I was immobile for a week then and then I ended up needing a lumpectomy. And so there were so many like surgery and immobility and all of that.

And despite all of those things, I think I lost three months of time if you put it all together. Throughout that year, I still got 40 mountain peaks in and it was because of this project, because I had a quilt going and because I had a goal, I did it. I got out there and hiked in the winter. I hiked some mountains when we were in Phoenix for Quilt Con.

It was just a really great way to help me do more things that I love. And have an excuse, you know, have a reason. This is not me being selfish. I’m making a quilt about it.

Tina: Right, right. First of all, you are so inspirational. This is amazing. I almost wanna quilt now, but I don’t wanna quilt. So, you know, there we are. It’s kinda like I did a queen size quilt in my twenties and I was like, okay, done with that. But I love this concept and I, it really ties into, I had read, I think it’s James Clear’s book, atomic Habits and he talks a lot about if you want to accomplish something in your life, pair it, tether it to something that you love doing. You love quilting and you have that accountability. So like you’ve set yourself up for so much success because you paired it with something you loved.

You’re accountable to the people that you talk to in your social media group and your website and all those different things. And it was something that you knew was going to bring you pleasure anyway. But it is so hard to get started on those things. It is so hard. And so I wanna celebrate that for a minute cuz that’s amazing and I think a lot of the listeners I know I am could take a lot from that. So thanks for sharing that.

Kitty: You’re very welcome. And I love that that book actually just came up in conversation. I have my membership group, the Quilt Your Life crew that’s focused on exactly this is creating positive habits and tying it together with quilting and living more intentionally. Um, literally just last week someone held up that book and was like, have you read this?

And I have not yet, but it’s definitely, I’m reading it next that. Right in line with what we’re doing.

So after my mountains quilt, I recognized how beneficial it was to take time for myself. And one of the big lessons I learned through that project was that it is okay for me to take up space because to hike a mountain, sometimes I had to arrange someone else to pick up the kids after school, or sometimes for longer ones.

You know, I needed to ask other people to be a little more in little inconvenienced so that I could go do this hike. And it was good. It was fine. It was beneficial. And so that was a big learning lesson for me with the Mountains Project. 

Tina: It’s such a powerful lesson. It’s such a powerful thing that we in particular as women, I think struggle with. I’m not saying that men don’t, but I can only speak as a woman cuz that’s my journey. Right.

Um, is that idea of taking up space and like, that’s why I found your speaking about your hearing loss so powerful because you just asked for what you needed and to take up space.

And I think that that has certainly been a struggle in my life. And I imagine on some level, because it’s so deeply ingrained in me will be my whole life. Not debilitating, but it’ll be something I’ll always need to keep in check. I’ll always need to be like, wait a minute, you can take up space. Hold on.

It’s okay. It’s okay to ask for help. And I think that, um, I have so many conversations with my girlfriends and I’m guessing you could tell the same story about, especially when we have children, all of the feeling that we have to do all the things. And if we don’t have a partner that might be able to step in naturally, we we’re not going to like put that out there and live in that discomfort of them pushing back on it, cuz they’re gonna push back on it.

Why wouldn’t they? It’s different than what has been before. And that doesn’t mean that they’re a bad partner, it just means that we have so much more ability to shift this than we think that we do, but we’ve allowed them to move over in this direction, crowding us out of our space because we are not taking up the space we need to take.

And I think that, um, that we’re not victims per se, and that, that we have the ability to stand up in that and be like, it’s okay. It’s okay to ask.

Kitty: Because sometimes it’s easier to survive than to take up space and thrive.

Tina: Yeah.

Kitty: It’s such a funny, like a funny thing to think about, but the whole concept of surviving versus thriving, and I feel like in my path of motherhood and I recognize it’s different for everyone, a big lesson that I have learned is that when I first went into motherhood, I was in the mentality of, I’ll survive, I’ll be fine. I can do this. And not recognizing that there are other people who could also step in and do some of these things, and maybe other people who maybe should step in and do some of these things. Um,

Tina: But if we don’t let space for that, they’re not going to be able to, I mean, in some cases they simply aren’t willing to, and that’s a different thing. But like we often don’t even let any room for that to happen.

Kitty: Right. Because yeah, and that’s the other thing is when we create space for other people to step in and help, we have to accept that they’re gonna do it differently than us. And that’s okay. That there’s more than one way to do it. Right. Which would help everybody. You know, there’s more than one right way to get to the end of this path.

And if I say, I can’t walk this path right now, you walk it for me, they might zig all over the place, Zig and zag, but if they get there and the kids are alive, cool. Good job.

Tina: Right. And if anything else, your children have more resiliency than they did before because they’ve learned how to exist with a different human doing things differently.

Kitty: Yeah. Which is super important. Yeah. It’s good for everybody.

And now a word from our sponsor. Today’s episode is sponsored by My Lovely Muse. Here’s what Christina had to say about her business. As a former public school teacher, the learning piece is important to me. I hold workshops locally and virtually specifically how to make your own beeswax wraps, including a complete kit that’s available on my website. 

And local workshops and drop in opportunities at markets to get your clothes mended and learn how to mend among other things. Uh, taking time to learn new skills to live a more earth conscious life makes us lifestyle sustainable in the long run. And for those who don’t feel, they have the time to commit to learning a new skill. 

I still provide handcrafted products for you to purchase, to help your journey toward that more sustainable lifestyle, because let’s be honest. in our modern world, we might not always have the time to dedicate to new hobbies. And that is something us makers can relate to. 

You can find out more about my lovely muse by checking out her website. mylovelymuse.com 

And that’s M Y L O V E L Y M U S e.com. 

On the website, you’ll find things like cloth napkins, cloth cocktail, napkins, beeswax wraps. Bees wax wrap do it yourself kits and reusable snack and sandwich bags. Check it out. Get 10% off of any order Of products on the website Using the code INKINSHIP23. that’s all one word and now back to our show. 

Tina: Okay, so tell us about that next quilt.

Kitty: So the next quilt was my summer loving quilt. And at this point I was newly on a journey of acceptance and self-discovery. When I turned 40, it resulted in a lot of self-reflection and a lot of looking at stories I’ve told myself about what I should and should not do or how to measure success, how to measure productivity.

And I was really exploring this idea that rest is productive and that joy and pleasure is successful or is valuable beyond just self care or being a guilty pleasure, that kind of thing. And so with that thought process already going on, I. Early spring and I was trying to go on a hike with my kids and they were pretty much put their feet down.

Like, are any friends going? No. None of our friends can go. It’s just gonna be me and you guys and we’re gonna go hike. And they were just like, no, I’m not doing it. I don’t wanna do it. And that kind of gave me a little bit of like a fear. Flash forward to the summer cuz summer hadn’t started yet, but I was like, all right, if they, they’re old enough now that they can express their wants and their needs and they, I’m very proud of the fact that my children are very comfortable setting boundaries. They’re very clear when they don’t want to do something and I, I respect that. You know, I’m not gonna drag that most of the time. Kind of made me scared for a moment because I was no longer at the age where I could load up the kids in the baby carrier, put all the snacks, and get ’em in the car, and just go.

We are now at the point where they’re autonomous. They have opinions, and they have needs, and they have wants, and they voice them, which means that maybe our family adventures would be less in my control. Here we are back to control again than they had in the past. All of that to say, I decided that you know what?

My joy and my pleasure is important to me, and so since our family adventures might not be as ubiquitous as they have been in years past, I’m gonna make a goal to number one, determine what things bring me joy. And number two, focus on doing at least one of them every day.

Tina: Yeah.

Kitty: so I conceptualized and started my Summer loving quilt, which ran from the months of June, July, and August.

 I brainstormed a list of things that I feel really good when I do, or that I always feel better after having done that are invigorating, that are soul filling in many different ways. And I decided, um, most blocks are earned based on time spent doing the activity. So for example, 30 minutes spent in the garden digging in the earth, planting seeds, weeding, whatever, um, would earn a block.

Some were just, you do it or you don’t. One was to submerge in the ocean cause that’s something that is so life-giving and so invigorating. And I used to love to do it and I spent 10 years hardly ever putting my head under the water because there were kids who might drown. And especially being hard of hearing.

You know, I had to take my hearing aids out to go underwater, which means not only could I not see them, I also wouldn’t be able to hear them. It was just, I hadn’t submerged in the ocean regularly, in over a decade. And so I decided that is gonna be one of the things that brings me joy and I’m gonna track it in my quilt.

And so I started this, this project where I had a long list of things that bring me joy or that make me feel good. And I decided it was gonna be the summer where I prioritize my own joy, prioritize my own pleasure, track the data, data nerds unite and make a beautiful quilt. Yeah. And it was great. And I, you know, as with every quilt that I’ve gone into through this quilt your life process, there were certainly things I was working through, like the big one with this one was feeling.

Was feeling selfish. Like, is this selfish that I am making this quilt all about my own joy? Like this is all about me. And this is not only all about me, it’s all about me and seeking and pursuing pleasure. Like how selfish is that? But it’s not selfish. Like the con, the conclusion that I got to by working through this, through the end of the summer and doing it and talking about it with other creative people is that joy and pleasure are productive and joy and pleasure are service to the people around you.

And joy and pleasure are necessary and human rights, like part of what we as humans are born to experience. And it’s really easy to push them aside because of the things, the obligations, or the things you need to do or the things you should do or the work that has to get done. Um, There’s a lot of reflection on making the choices to do these things I love, and maybe being less productive with work, maybe doing less work, but recognizing that maybe that balance is one that’s better

Tina: Right?

Kitty: and still wrestling with that.

Like finding that balance of how much time can I spend on pursuing joy and pursuing pleasure and still be like a quote unquote valuable human, which is such a challenging, like that’s totally something that comes from society. That whole concept of being a valuable human because as you know, and I think we know, we are enough and we are valuable as we are right now without doing or making or producing or like anything we are valuable in and of ourselves.

Tina: Oh

This that I can see as someone listening to your story is that you love to quilt, right?

 And that you find so much pleasure enjoying your life and growth and connecting what you wanna focus on that year with this pleasurable act that you have, right? So you create them and you give so much more credence to your craft as well by doing that it becomes larger than the sum of its parts, and when we struggle to take up space in the world, for you to feel like, oh no, I have to, I need to do this because this is part of my, my work. This is part of my job. This is part of my joy. Right? Like it, it’s infused into all of it, and I think that is so beautiful.

 I love that you have shifted it every year to keep it fresh and new and exciting for yourself. Because when you started the story, I honestly thought, how do you keep, how do you maintain the excitement around it year after year? But , it’s a brand new quilt every year. It’s a brand new focus. It’s a brand new growth. It’s a brand new goal, and I think that’s beautiful.

Kitty: Because I’m a brand new person. I’m not the person, I’m not the person who made that quilt for Finn seven, eight years ago. You know, at that point, sewing felt selfish. I believe that time spent sewing should be spent with my kids. And so the way that quilt happened was, this is a gift to my child.

This is something that I’m making for my child. Therefore, it’s okay that I’m sewing here because that was before I recognized self-care as a necessary part of being a human. You know, it was before I really recognized myself as. Being able to be an autonomous adult and still be a good mother and a good partner, and a good friend, and a good worker.

So, yeah, I mean, it has been really interesting to watch the journey of the different things I’m exploring , and I’m always curious to see where I’ll go next. Who knows?

Tina: And I love the synchronicity between beginning your quilting journey with a simple patchwork quilt because that felt doable. Where these be beautiful quilts are so, so on par with what you’re doing now felt out of reach, right? So creating a quilt for your son, which feels like it’s not for me, it’s for somebody else, so therefore it has more value and I can spend my time doing this is like that little bit of permission, right?

It’s just that cracking open of the door. Just that tiny little bit of like, and then the journey that we take, we, we let that door crack open and the journey that we take is always amazing. Like especially if you’re brave enough to follow the steps. Especially if you’re brave enough to be like, well, all right, what’s next?

And I look at who you are now as opposed to who you were then. Like I love that trans, I love it. Thank.

Kitty: It’s incredible. It really is incredible. It’s, it has been exactly that and that’s such a great analogy. As you know, Finn’s milestone quilt was cracking the door open and then I just kind of put a little bit more of me through that door. And so now it’s, it’s an open door because I am an autonomous human and my partner respects that and, you know, supports me in it.

Something we talk about with my crew a lot is, Especially, you know, wrestling with that idea of doing things that are focused on your own joy or your own pleasure, it feels selfish. 

But recognizing that when you are joyful or when you find joy or you find pleasure, you feel better. And that influences the way you interact with the rest of the world. And it influences the way you’re able to show up for the people in your life. And so, we talk a lot about ripples, you know, like if you throw a, a little pebble into a lake, like it makes ripples.

And every time we take the time to do what we need, whether that’s do something joyful, go for a run, spend time in nature,

Tina: Mm-hmm.

Kitty: you know, read a book, take a bath like that is something that is not only benefiting us, but in turn benefiting everybody else that you interact with. Which then positively influences their life, and then they can positively influence.

It’s just like ripples going out to the rest of the world Permission granted

Tina: And that is exactly the work that I’m doing in the sewing clothing realm. Right? That’s exactly the work that I’m doing. I’m looking at it from a female perspective, but I think it relates to humans of all type. When we fully stand in our own power, our own femininity, our own masculinity, our own blend thereof, whatever that is our own signature, us.

When we stand fully in our own power of that, which is exactly what you’re talking about, then we become much more satisfying partners. We become much more satisfying and amazing parents. And I think that, um, it’s scary though.

It’s scary to change the status quo. I would imagine when you first started requesting from your partner that you needed space to run, that you needed space to do this. It probably was not met with like, oh, absolutely. Take whatever time you want. It probably was like a little uncomfortable because it’s like, well, where are we gonna fit this in?

And I can’t speak to your husband, but I would imagine, cuz that’s how it’s been in my past, is like there’s that push against it. But when you, when you continue to stand solid in it, people flow around it and it’s totally fine. Yeah. They’re gonna push cuz that fence didn’t used to be there. So they’re like, how solid is this fence?

Is this fence really gonna stay here? And then when it does, they’re like, okay, all right, life goes on.

Kitty: Totally. And it actually, I think it helps, like we did the be the big reallocation of care task when Covid hit, when there were five of us under one roof, because he saw he, I mean he saw, I think the first few months I did all the online school, all the meals, all the laundry, all the everything.

You know the way we had set up before when the kids went off to school and we had someone come in and help with things. And so when we reallocated there, as you said it, it was a challenging conversation to say like, I literally cannot do this anymore. We need to figure out a different route. But what it did is it helped, I feel like he became empowered by it as well, because not only by him stepping in and helping with things that previously were the things that I just did, he became more empowered with his contribution and place in the family. The kids, he had a better relationship. He got to spend more time with kids. They spent more time with him. He started cooking more meals. He, he’s great at cooking.

He bakes bread, he makes cookies. Like so many things came out of it that if we were pre covid and didn’t have that conversation about, Hey, I need some space to be a human without answering questions and fulfilling needs,

Tina: Right.

Kitty: let’s step in here. Um, it’s just, it’s so much better for all of us. And I recognize that that’s not always the case.

Like not all mothers, or not all parents have a partner that they can rely on to take half the mental load or half the care task load. And, and it’s challenging. But I also, you know, we all need somebody. We all need help.

Tina: We do. And I agree with you that. Not to discredit the people that have a partner that will not step in, but I think that we have the ability to some degree in our own experience, to just allow more space and ask for that help. And maybe it won’t be from the partner we able to be from somebody else, but we not only have the ability, but we need, it’s a need to do that because one, I want my son, and I would guess this would be the same for you, like if I need to see it in some unselfish way or quotes here, then I can look at it simply from this aspect of modeling for my child, right?

Kitty: Right.

Tina: I want him to choose a female or partner, whatever that might be in his life that is an autonomous human. And stands fully in themselves. I want him to be an autonomous human, so I want that to be the case. So I very much understand as a parent that the only teaching I ever do is through modeling, really.

So there’s my permission slip, if you will.

Kitty: Definitely. Yeah. That, that little, um, rationalization, that’s what I call it. I rationalize this choice that I’m making because I’m, that’s a really good point, especially as a parent of kids, is modeling that it’s good to do things you love, and it’s okay to take the day and go on a hike instead of go to work.

Like, that’s okay. 

Tina: I wanna ask you about

Kitty: Hmm.

Tina: a really brave post I saw, I believe it was last summer, and it must have been during your summer of loving that quilt. I, again, I mentioned that I follow you online, and so if anybody wants to check you out, Night Quilter is her handle on Instagram and she has the most beautiful post.

But this particular post stopped me in my tracks and made me reach out and comment along with a couple of hundred other people. You had posted about pleasure and in particular orgasms, and I thought that was one of the most brave posts I had seen because I certainly have followed people who, who shout it from the rooftops.

Right. Um, and I find that really intriguing. But here was somebody that I had been following, just talking about living the pleasure of a life and saying, this is kind of scary for me to talk about, but I’m gonna say this to you. So I wonder if you will talk about that post and maybe how the experience was for putting it out there, but also just whatever comes up around that.

Kitty: Yeah, that was a, a big post and a, a scary post to share, which really shouldn’t be the case. But when I was thinking about my summer loving quilt and all the things that make me feel better and bring me joy and bring me pleasure, there was no way I could not include orgasms. Or like sexual pleasure, who does not feel better after doing that?

 And when I turned 40, a good friend had lent me the book, Come As You Are. Uh, and that really started me on a journey of self-acceptance and recognition that our bodies are wonderful and right the way they are, and that people come in all shapes and sizes with different desires and levels of desire and all of that, and all of that is good and normal.

And that really started me on, you know, as I mentioned, a path of self-acceptance and a path of discovery and exploration. And it was a really wonderful thing because up until that point, I was very weighed down by the shame and the stigma that society puts on sex and sexuality. And at that point I was turning 40.

And really, as I mentioned previously, looking at the different stories that I got from society or the like paths I think I’m supposed to be on, or things I’m supposed to do, or things I’m supposed to believe. And recognizing how many of them are not serving me. Uh, you know, one of which is the mother as martyr.

And that’s like, I don’t need to give everything of myself to be a good and positive mother. And so another one was shame and stigma around sex and orgasm and pleasure and self-exploration and all of that. And so when I was planning this quilt, this was one of those things that, you can’t not include sexual pleasure when you’re making a quilt about prioritizing joy and prioritizing pleasure.

So I decided to track orgasms, uh, among many other things. 

Uh, but that post was my kind of public sharing about what those yellow circle blocks mean. And it was a frightening post to write, which tells you something, you know, it tells you something about our society that, oh, I don’t know if, I don’t know if I can talk about pleasure on my post.

And it took me a while to even be able to say orgasm instead of pleasure peak, or, you know, some other word for it. Um, but I’ve gotten to the point where I think that it’s really important for us to talk about these things that are. Right and good and positive parts of who we are as humans.

And almost more so to talk about the ones that aren’t talked about. Because then it just empowers women to, and really I say that in a broad sense, empowers people who have vulvas. It empowers people in general to be comfortable in their own bodies with their own sexuality.

And normalizes letting go of the shame and letting go of the stigma. And I think that’s really important. And I think that sharing that post, I wasn’t sure what kind of response there would be. And the response was overwhelmingly positive. And the number of messages I got from people who were just like, I am so grateful that you shared this because it’s something that I struggle with, or I have shame around, or, oh, I think this is so wonderful, but I’m not brave enough to talk about it.

And I, I think that’s both sad that this is the society we’re in, where sex has such a negative connotation when it’s such a beautiful and wonderful part of our humanity. But also was kind of an affirmation that, okay, this is not scary. I mean, it’s still a little scary, but

it’s, it’s not like, it’s just this is part of, part of life.

And like some people like sex, some people don’t. And all of that is okay. And some people like self-pleasure and some people don’t. And all of that is okay. And you know, just having that.

Tina: Yeah.

Kitty: Permission, once again, permission to know your body and to celebrate the ways that feel good, whether it’s jumping in the ocean or other things, um, I think a good, important part of our life.

And, how much better would it be if we were not so shy and so ashamed of celebrating that.

Tina: Yeah. Oh, I am so glad for the work that you’re doing out in the world and for your authenticity and your vulnerability, and I think that, it’s just amazing. Like I said, that particular post stopped me in my tracks and I had to comment on it because I thought, would I be brave enough to talk about this right, with my people?

Like would I be brave enough to say something? And, uh, we talked before our show today on how we both had kind of a similar upbringing in that conversation around bodily functions in any form really, we’re not part of our childhood. And so I also shared earlier with you that I had some shame that I’ve been working on around orgasm it was around 40 for me. And I have to say, that kind of bugs me that it like a certain age. We all decide to like work on these things. Right. Here, let me back up. This is why it bugs me but I was in a women’s circle for many years and one of the women in the women’s circle, she was about a decade older than me.

And so when I was talking about the things I was struggling with, she’s like, oh yeah, that’s what happens when you turn 40. And I’m like, what? I am a unique autonomous human. My experience is my own. I’m not going through this because I’m 40. And then like I talk to all these people that are in their early forties and I’m like, are you kidding me?

Are we all going through the same awakening? Or whatever this might be? So I don’t know the answer to that, I just wanna complain about it for a moment. But it was around 40 that I also decided to really embrace the idea of trying to bring more of that root chakra that, you know, kind of base level energy into my life in a different way. Cuz I realized I was kind of closed off that way. I was closed off that way with partners and I was closed off that way sometimes solo and I wanted to open that up and bring light into it. And so I spent some time doing that. But I find this intriguing is that when my life gets hard, when I get wrapped up in, I’m not present. I’m not making things cuz like I think you have so clearly demonstrated for us today how powerful that making journey is in bringing joy to your life. But when I’m not doing the things that are in my tool belt that I know are there I’m sort of spinning in this cycle of and hard and whatever it is, I can’t reach that part of me that has that kind of pleasure and I. I hate that. Right? I want to use that for as a tool if I can, to open up, cuz you know, like expansion is everything that I want to experience in life. So to open up that expansion. And so I wanna thank you for opening up the conversation and for being brave enough to do that. Cuz I know that there’s such power in bringing something to the light and I just, and you were so vulnerable about it too.

You were so much like, this is hard for me to say rather than like, well this is a very simple topic for me. 

Kitty: Yeah. Well, I mean, and sometimes it’s the things that are harder, the hardest to say that. I think that’s part of what made me so determined to find a way to talk about it because it felt like one of those things. And even though I was told by few people like, well that’s, you know, something that’s private, you don’t talk about that.

And I’m like, but why? Because then there will be people around like me who don’t know that it’s something that’s okay to do or that have a lot of shame around it or that have just believe the stigma around it being a negative or dirty or it’s not the human body is amazing. The human body is beautiful and it can feel so many different things.

And to not allow yourself that openness is sad.

And so I’m I’m glad, I’m glad to hear that you are also opening up. And that is funny cuz 40, uh, it was like my 40th birthday that I got that book and that was just the beginning of this self-reflection and so much growth and transformation and I’m like, 40 is amazing.

Tina: It truly is, and you know, like I did go into 40 thinking, but I already did all this work when I was in my thirties. It’s like, oh, not quite.

Kitty: I didn’t do any of it until I turned 40. And then it was all at once and it’s kinda like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. But also wonderful, like what is just such an en enriching and like to be able to accept all parts of yourself

Tina: Mm-hmm.

Kitty: is really what it comes down to. You know, without being like, well this part of me is, is negative in some way, or this part of me I wish, I wish it weren’t that way.

And it’s really comes down to like radical acceptance, radical self-acceptance. That this is this thing that I have been taught for however long I’ve been alive, that this is like a bad thing or a negative thing or a dirty thing or a selfish thing or a, any other word you wanna say. And recognizing that.

That’s not serving me at all. Number one. And number two is probably some patriarchal controlling thing, saying it in the first place, which is a whole conversation for another time.

Tina: Yes.

Kitty: But like, and it’s not serving the people around me when I believe it because until I can fully accept and love myself without shame and without judgment, then how can I fully love and accept the people around me?

And how can I be a good role model for how to live an abundant and fulfilling life.

Tina: Oh I could talk to you forever, but what is one thing that you think maybe people don’t know, deep in their hearts that you wish they did?

Kitty: I think if I had to narrow it down to one thing, it would be that you are enough as simple as that, exactly as you are right now. You’re doing enough. You are enough.

Tina: Yeah.

Kitty: At the root of it, I feel like so many times we are our own worst critic, you know, like we could tell our friends, they’re beautiful, they’re sexy, they’re wonderful, they’re amazing, and then you turn to yourself and you see the ways that you wish you were different, at least for me.

And so to be able to look deep into the root of yourself and believe that you are enough, I mean, what more? Is there you enough right now?

Tina: Thank you,

Kitty, where can the listeners of the podcast find you? Where can they find you online? Where can they find out more about the Quilt Your Life crew, and the things that you’re up to?

Kitty: So I have a website, nightquilter.com, and it’s night as in the opposite of day, not night in Shining Armor, I’m also on Instagram as night quilter, and I have Facebook and I think there’s a TikTok somewhere, but Instagram is my primary social media spot that is also where you can find information, uh, about the Quilt Your Life crew.

There’s a link both on my website and in my Instagram profile, but that’s a wonderful group. It’s a membership group. There’s a sliding scale, payment structure because I wish this joy for everyone and I really want it to be an accessible place. So, um, yeah, it’s just a great group that’s focused on living with intention and being meaningful with your makes, there’s no requirement that you make a quilt. I’ve had people join and say, oh, I feel bad that I’m a part of this group, cuz I’m not making a quilt. And I’m like, Hey, if you are benefiting from the conversations we’re having and from the inspiration from others, and you know, there’s no obligation that you have a quilt plan going or that you plan to make a quilt, you can just join us for the intentional living and the creativity and the ways to tie things you love to do together with each other.

Um, and it’s a really wonderfully supportive community. 

Tina: Thank you again. I sincerely hope to have you back on the show cause I think there’s a lot that we could talk about and I love what you bring to it. I love your openness and your joy. It’s obvious just seeing you. I know that my listeners can’t see your eyes right now, but you are, uh, light in the world and I’m so grateful you’re here.

Thank you.

Kitty: Thank you so much for having me. This was wonderful. I’d love to chat anytime.

Didn’t they tell you that was an amazing conversation. Oh, it’s so fun talking to people out in the world, doing beautiful things. People living they’re vibrant lives and sharing that with us. I absolutely love it. I’m so grateful that you’re here listening with me. And would you do me a favor? Jump online and subscribe to the show and maybe post a review while you’re there. I would appreciate that. 

You can also jump on my website, kinshiphandwork.com. And sign up for my newsletter. I send out a personal thoughtful. Deep thinking newsletter. Every other week. And I’d love for you to get it. That’s kinshiphandwork.com. 

And a final word from our sponsor. Thank you to My Lovely Muse for sponsoring today’s podcast. 

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