My Tuesday meeting with Joan was rescheduled, so I have a bit more time to get ready for her! I now have sketches and some new fabric, and my plans have taken more shape! More on that later, as I putter around!
When I envisioned this project, I didn’t want to have to count on outside help to achieve my goal. I am not a quilter and have never made a quilt, but I have made two quilt squares (well, one is a circle) under the tutelage of Dr. Joan Gaither, and I realize that even as a beginner, the only thing to do is to start.
Joan invites the community to get involved with her quilts, and I have taken part in that experience, and it is uplifting! But I didn’t see my project growing to that scale, so in order to involve the community, I began by asking folks to simply donate fabric to me, and I can do the rest. My idea was, the community will be able to view the finished quilt and see their own fabric making up a part of it. This idea was also influenced by Joan, because she has made quilts in honor or in memory of individuals, mostly family members (especially young people), and has used their garments – hats, baby clothes – and has sewn these to her quilts to very powerful effect – it is as though the garments have been strewn across a bed. When you see the fabric of a particularly memorable outfit that you loved on a person, whether a grandmother or child, or even sometimes an acquaintance, it brings the memories flooding back. Cloth has so many ways of signifying powerful emotions!
The donations of fabric have been limited – but many thanks to Vicki Petersen of the Captain Salem Avery Museum for the fabrics she donated! Let me know if YOU would like to donate fabric as well!
An unexpected development then arose – many people here have taken workshops with Joan and have seen what she can do with cloth, and they contacted me and said they wanted to contribute quilt squares that have their own imagery on them, and not just fabric! I resisted at first, but it became evident that the urge to create imagery with fabric, and to see the finished product as part of a quilt, is shared by many! So now it seems that the Four Rivers quilt will have an array of finished 12×12 squares as well as cloth “bricks,” as I first imagined, and I am including places for the squares in my design. I am pleased to say that Joan herself has said she hopes to make a square for the quilt as well. I have asked Four Rivers staffer Aleithea Warmack to consider making a quilt square too, and she has agreed! Watch this blog for news of these developments!
Note: unless otherwsie noted, the quilt posts are written by Carol Benson.
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