Note: This continuing series reposts some of the most memorable columns of Suzy’s Fancy, which ran from 2009-2020. This piece originally ran in January 2015.
Photo courtesy of Parks and Recreation/NBC Universal.
Monica Solorio-Snow just wants to have fun.
What’s more, she wants you to have fun with her. Her creative personality and playful sense of humor are as bright and clever as the fabrics she designs (her most recent collection, “Sew Yummy” is licensed to Cloud9 Fabrics).
And the quilt and home-sewing patterns that she contributes to the Better Homes and Gardens magazines Quilts and More™ and American Patchwork & Quilting always contain an element of whimsy.
On her website, Happy Zombie, (having the tagline “Unsupervised and armed with really, really sharp sewing needles”), Monica describes herself as being “the girl your mom didn’t want you to play with.” The internet and social media are her playground and her blog will make you laugh out loud.
Given all this, it is perhaps not surprising that Monica came up with an unusual idea for a quilt-along* that has triggered something of an Internet sensation: the Ron Swanson quilt.
Ron Swanson is a fictional character from the popular TV sitcom, Parks and Recreation. Played by actor Nick Offerman, the Ron Swanson character has developed a cult following, and his quotes from the show have become pop culture standards.
Monica loves Ron Swanson and she decided to do a photo portrait quilt of the character out of squares of fabric. She then decided to invite her many blog followers to create their own Ron Swanson quilt in what she called “The Ron Swanson Along.”
Spanning a 12-day period, Monica released blocks of the quilt by row, along with yardage and cutting instructions, a printable pattern showing the block layout, and a face map.
The whole experience far exceeded her expectations, and she describes it this way: “So I had this little quilt-along, a little 12 ‘days’ of block-making. Cut, sew, press and then bam!—a Ron Swanson quilt! Because who doesn’t want to help blanket the world with warm and cozy Ron Swansons?
“I happened to show my friend Dana as I’m making it, and she then has a bee fly in her bonnet—and takes my finished quilt (aka RonQuilt) on a grand adventure around Southern California and secret TV shoots (she works in the television industry) and the photos are sprinkled throughout the quilt-along days.
It culminated with a visit to the Parks and Recreation set for a mano-a-mano meet-n-greet between RonQuilt and Nick Offerman. For the record – best day ever when I saw the pics of RonQuilt with Nick Offerman!”
Monica’s Ron Swanson quilt was shown at the Modern Quilt Guild’s first QuiltCon held in Austin, Texas in 2013 and it won a first place in the piecing category.
Monica loved seeing visitors’ reactions to the quilt: “Up close, my quilt just looks like a bunch of random squares pieced together, so it was fun to watch people step back and then I could see in their faces the excitement when they realized it was Ron Swanson! It was also fun to hear different generations take a stab at who they thought was pictured on my quilt. I heard (and was told) people suggest John F. Kennedy, Rock Hudson, and Cary Grant.”
When asked how many Ron Swanson quilts were made, Monica replies, “It’s hard to say. I’ve gotten so many emails from people who have made one or know of someone who’s made one or were the recipient of one, and there are the people who’ve posted their pictures in my Flickr group. I would just say that a whole lot were made. And I hope a whole lot more people will continue to make one!”
Finally, Monica is drawn to quilting because she “loves the idea of a quilt being something of utilitarian nature, and taking that and making it beautiful and happy. I love that quilts can also be a voice, a statement, and a comfort, and you can make a fort out of them with your friends.”
*A quilt-along is an online project in which one quilter provides a pattern and directions for a quilt during a specific time period and other quilters create their own version and share their results with one another via social media.
