THE PROJECT
Gather 2-12 participants -a group of friends, family members, community members, a craft group, a classroom of children, a handful of coworkers, etc.
With your group, begin to brainstorm and share ideas about how you would like to improve our country. What sorts of issues affect your life the most? What would you like to know more about? Some examples include: Health Care, Environment, Education, Racism, Poverty, Immigration, Economy, and Marriage Equality. The group will come up with a list of issues.
Begin to think about how your daily personal choices affect one or more of the discussed issues. You will then illustrate your ideas and transfer the illustration into an embroidery.
Your embroidery will be used with your peers' work to make the final quilt. The quilt will be a visual representation of your group's ideas, conversations, opinions, hopes and commitments concerning our country.
MATERIALS
Repurposing and collecting materials when possible is recommended.
Embroidery hoops
Embroidery floss
Iron & ironing board
Sewing needles - Universal size 12
Pins- beaded head
Fabric
Quilt batting
Sketch paper and pencils
Optional Materials:
Standard sewing machine (optional)
Rotary cutter
Rotary ruler
Cutting mat
Pattern for block quilt
QUILTING
A block quilt is one way to stitch the embroideries together for this project. The Block is the basic unit of the pattern. Below are the basic steps to make an easy Block quilt.
Cutting the fabric
Place the fabrics in a pile, one over another on the place mat. Take the ruler and use the rotary cutter to cut the pieces that will outline the embroidered square.
Making a block
Stitch them together to form a big square- the Block. Sew all the pieces to form the same sized blocks.
Piecing
Using the sewing machine, sew all of the blocks to each other to complete the front of the quilt.
Batting
Place the chosen batting material above the piecing. The top of the piecing should be facing the mat and the stitched side should go along the batting.
Now place the lining fabric over it.
Quilting
Stitch all three layers to each other with the help of the sewing machine. Stitch around the basic blocks,
all over the quilt.
Binding
Bind all of the sides with a piece of the fabric.
