In my last post, I showed you my finished Boundless quilt. One of the last things I did on that quilt was add applique to the diamonds that are in the quilt.
As I cut the applique, I collected the cutouts on the table. A sane quilter would have simply swiped the cuttings into a trash can without a thought and decided what to have for dinner. A smart quilter would have cut the applique over a trash can and the cuttings would already be in the trash.
But me? I thought, hmm, these pieces have fusible on them. What can I do with them? I decided to fuse them to a background. I added all of the tear drop shapes in the center, mandala style. The little rectangular pieces looked like they belonged on the ground, maybe grass or boats. Like a Rorschach test, people can decide what it looks like to them.
But when I looked at what I had done, I saw bullets in the mandala, and caskets or funeral pyres in the rectangular pieces. Really, am I going to make a political quilt? The only rule about improv that I know is that you say "Yes, and". So I decided to roll with it and make a political quilt.
To be fair, if I had been a part of a challenge where I had to make a political quilt, this would have been the cause I would choose for it.
I quilted each letter to secure it, and secured the fused applique pieces with straight lines.
Since this is a complicated, messy topic, and gun violence is messy, I added the thread clippings on the quilt and also secured them with the quilting. I don't know what the solution is, but I do think we should keep trying until we figure it out.
To me, it seems like the gun rights people have the loudest voices, especially in our government, so I made their words loud with big bold letters. The quilting lines makes me think of prisons, and I think we need prison reform. The corrupt politicians who support guns instead of supporting people are the ones who belong in prison.
The little bumps on these pieces made me think of people pushing against the casket, saying "gun rights? what about our rights?" I embroidered their rights in a small print. My heart has been heavy about lives that are cut short by gun violence, so I left it incomplete. Ever since the Columbine school shooting, and maybe even earlier, I have been amazed that the country is complacent and letting this situation go on and get even worse.
The red in the binding was difficult to make because of the bulk, but it represents blood on our hands as we are holding the quilt. We all have blood on our hands for continuing to vote for the corrupt politicians and the ineffective ones.
Since I started making this quilt last week, there have been two news
events I heard about gun violence. First, I learned that more children
die of gun violence in the U.S. than any other cause. Do we really need
extreme stats before we do something? The other is about two Tennessee
state representatives, Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, being expelled
from the House for participating in a protest in favor of gun control.
The back of the quilt is a novelty print to represent for my hope for the future, where everyone gets to enjoy their lives.
