I'd been thinking a lot about the Kellner reading and getting the story 'crooked' (or perhaps getting the story 'queer' - deliberate word choice there), and so my thoughts were to do a version that involves looking queerly at family history, as one of the earliest histories that you learn as a kid.

That got me thinking about my chosen family and the deliberate relationships that wouldn't be mapped by official paperwork in state archives, federal birth records, or marriage certificates; that aren't organized by age or blood relation or traditional binary title designations like mom/dad, aunt/uncle, or son/daughter. It also got me thinking above how archives can both help and harm queer and trans folks, as visibility can be a two-edged sword.

I went through a couple of different iterations, initially considering a traditional paper family free, a non-traditional paper tree, discarding paper all together due to the archives thinking, then moving on to various fibre arts, still in the shape of a recognizable family tree, before moving onto quilting and a more abstract expression of family ties.

In the end, I chose to do a quilt that showcases the non-linear relationships with and between members of my chosen family, where ties are represented by proximity to other squares. That choice resulted from trying to draw out a version of a family tree, viewable below. Unlike traditional family trees, that have a clear start and end and a clearly defined hierarchy based on birth order, my chosen family is a complicated network of simultaneous peer and parental relationships, and so that attempt at drawing was stymied by the question of 'where do I even start?'

My choice of quilting also engages with the idea of gendered skills, as it was my grandma who taught me the basics of quilting, and her mom who taught her, etc. In that sense, it kind of involves a brief thought towards Judith Butler, in that quilting is not inherently a gendered skill, and that though it is often passed along presumed gendered lines, its presumed gender-ness does not inform my own gender or rather, lack thereof.

My choice of quilting also reflects the proliferation of queer crafting circles and crafting as a form of bonding, which is also how I met some of my chosen family, back when I helped run the aptly named 'Queercraft.'

The project involved a mixture of self-directed work as well as co-production. The intent of the project was to make a quilt representing the various members of my chosen family, and for me to make the quilt myself but with significant input over video chat.

I have a series of weekly zoom calls with various members of my chosen family, and we often work on a variety of fabric arts while chatting. Similarly to looking at family history queerly, I decided to perform in a queer manner as well and do a series of private performances in front of the people that I wanted to include on the quilt. This allowed the performance to be a form of co-production between myself and the members of my chosen family, where they could impact and add onto my quilt virtually, through my hands.

The plan was to create a very basic quilt, with a panel in the middle, surrounded by squares representing members of my chosen family. Due to both space and time restrictions, partners are grouped (both for romantic or platonic partnerships) instead of having each person on their own square, and I ended up with only one layer of rather large squares.

The general layout of the quilt was pre-decided, based on what felt feasible during the available time and given that the project was hand-sewn. It is for that same reason that there is a limited amount of fabrics involved. I chose the fabrics based on what I felt would appeal most to the people on the quilt, and then had them choose the fabrics that made up their square based on the fabrics I had purchased. As you can see on the quilt as well as below, there was the choice of Batman, Pokemon, galaxy, coffee, whales, or flowers and skulls, which I think says a lot about the type of people I call family.

After everyone had chosen their fabrics, I began to piece them together. First, the squares, then putting squares into rows, and then sewing those rows to the centre panel, and then sewing it all together. The location of each square is approximately connected to how I met them, and in whose company.

After all the panels were attached, I embroidered their names onto their respective squares, in the colours of their choice (again, from a limited selection, based on what I had available). I then added the backing and the binding, and the quilt was made.

The 'performances' probably aren't what initially comes to mind with that word - they weren't scripted or with a specific talking point in mind, and I was never the one to bring up the quilt, until they asked 'what are you doing?' This is because following Norrick (2007), I wanted to experiment with conversational storytelling. Most academic research with queer folks tends to focus on oral histories, which is awesome, but can be very different from the way that knowledge and experiences are shared within the community and within chosen families. As Norrick says,

Much of the research on oral narrative is based on stories from non-conversational contexts. Research on oral storytelling began with monologic stories explicitly elicited in interviews. ... Genuine conversational storytelling is always interactive, negotiated, and not simply designed for a particular audience by a single teller. Conversational stories may be deeply contextualized, diffuse, and not easily detachable from the local conditions that occasion them or [make them] understandable outside of them.

The conversational storytelling that I've experienced within queer spaces has been very different from the oral histories that are recorded from outside those same spaces. The direct, sometimes extractive, and often extremely emotional qualities of oral histories do not mimic the meandering pace that occurs in casual conversation. Those casual conversations often take place in queer spaces or between queer folks, which means that the goal isn't to make people outside of the community understand a specific point, such as "trans people are people too" or some other plea for better treatment, but instead mean that conversants have a common background such as being trans that mean that that basic point is already very clearly understood. This means that conversations between folks, such as with members of my family, already have those shared basic understandings and experiences that are further built on through conversational storytelling in friendship and kinship. It means that when someone mentions something traumatic, they can refer to it in a joking manner to keep emotional distance without worrying about the seriousness of the experience being misunderstood. It's a very different experience and expectation of understanding.

Besides functioning as a way to help me complete this project, those performances merged with habitual practices. The quilt got discussed, but was merged into our existing practice of using video chats as a way to get together virtually, have fun, and share life updates. Over the course of the calls, some folks had breakups, others caught COVID, two people came out, one person changed their name, another got into grad school, and someone else is eloping to avoid inviting their family to their wedding. Along with those conversations, also came chosen-family-specific conversations about things like care duties - especially for those who were ill at the time, but also for other things like pet sitting, OGS and SSHRC help, and elopement planning, which is why I am now in charge of planning a bachelorette.

This project and these conversations represent my chosen family through the finished quilt, but also demonstrate how we fill both peer and parental roles for each other to make up for roles that might be otherwise missing in our lives. Together, they show the way that we've created deliberate kinship ties, and co-produced a momento to represent our family history. One that won't be found in an official archive and that doesn't follow an age-based hierarchy, but that is important and should be recognized nonetheless.