2001
18.5”w x 12.5”h
SOLD
Duplicate Available for $300.00

 THE FULL STORY

  I'm the mother of young children, two in school, one still at home. I don't watch TV but listen to the radio while I'm doing stuff when I can. On the 11th I had left the radio on while I was elsewhere and before lunch happened to go back upstairs and heard some very confusing stuff on NPR. I couldn't figure out what was going on so I turned it off and flipped on the TV just in time to see the first tower collapse. Things were too horrible to watch so off it went again and I tried to go about being to regular mom for the rest of the day until the kids were all in bed then sat with my husband glued to the set and crying most of  the night.
   Karey Bresenhan, the founder and director of the International Quilt Festival in Houston, TX announced an exhibit at the upcoming show of quilt-artist’ responses to the events. My friend Amy Winsor had already nearly completed a small quilt in response to the events but I was paralyzed. I felt I couldn’t possibly make anything that would speak to what had happened. It was too big.
   Again, I left the TV off most of the week when the kids were awake although now I kept the radio on. I suppose since I tried not to saturate myself with those horrible visuals some other things bubbled up to the surface. I kept hearing about attacks on American Muslims and it sickened me as much as the terrorist attacks. Haven't we been through this before? Did we learn nothing from Pearl Harbor? Why would people react by harming innocent citizens? The words "confirm they soul with self control" and "may God thy gold refine" among others kept running through my head along with many others. I suppose it was easier for me to deal with this than with the unfathomable loss of life and trauma of the plane attacks. I wanted to do something about it, even to walk up to the many muslims that live in our area. They had all disappeared. How very, very, sad that they felt to afraid to come out as usual. So finally I decided to do the quilt. Amy Winsor, a best friend had already finished hers and kept nudging me to do something for the show. The subject of brotherhood and national unity was one I could deal with. I began my quilt.
   When it was announced that all the quilts would be auctioned with funds going to the families of vicitms of Sept. 11th I was even more determined to finish this piece in time for the exhibit deadline, just a few short days away.

In honor of the victims of September 11, 2001

We are
ONE NATION
No matter where we came from
UNDER GOD
No matter what name we give Him
With
LIBERTY
And
JUSTICE
For
ALL

   I dye all my fabrics with Procion MX dyes, that particular quilt used Testfabrics mercerized cotton print cloth as a base. I found some suitable colors from my last dye run. Next step was to set up all of the words in a regular old word processing program on the computer. I used words from the preamble to the constitution, the bill of rights, the pledge of allegience, and the song "America" (Oh Beautiful for Spacious Skies.) I then stabilized a piece of very light blue, and a piece of deep red/yellow by ironing them to freezer paper. I trimmed them to paper size and ran through my laser printer just like a piece of paper to print the words on them.
   All three colors of fabric were then bonded to Wonder-Under. An outline of the US was traced onto the red, cut out, positioned very carefully onto  the light blue in order to match the printed words and ironed down. That was then ironed directly to batting along with the blue borders. I used a gold gell-pen to highlight some of the words, painted the words "One Nation" then used my old Kenmore (about to kick the bucket) to free-motion quilt the thing...without a backing fabric
   Once quilted a backing fabric, again with Wonder-Under fused to it, was laid face down on the top of the quilt, edges sewn, trimmed, a hole slashed in the backing fabric and the whole thing "birthed" to right side out. Because it was the first time I had used that construction method and I was in a hurry to make the deadline it didn't occur to me to make the backing fabric slightly smaller than the top and stretch as I sewed. That is why there are wrinkles ironed right into the back of the piece. It was mostly covered with the label (again, fused in place, gottaa love that Wonder-Under) but that is the main thing I am happier with in the duplicate I made the next week.
   The last step was to overlay torn pieces of  Wonder-Under that had been painted with watered down acrylics on top of the words. Gold foil was then rubbed onto the heated fusible in some areas. My idea was a nation in flames, emerging stronger and wiser...it's gold slightly more refined than before, united.

Show History

Published in: AMERICA: From the Heart/Quilters Remember September 11

Hudson River Museum
Yonkers, New York  2002

Quiltfest/Red River Revel Arts Festival
Shreveport, Louisiana  2002

Museum, Old Dominion University
Norfolk, Virginia 2002

Minnesota Quilters Conference
St. Cloud, Minnesota 2002

Embellishment®
Oregon Convention Center, Portland, Oregon 2002

Spring Quilt Market
Kansas City, Missouri, 2002

NY Quilts! Show
Russell Sage College, Troy, NY 2002

Patchwork & Quilt Expo VIII
Barcelona, Spain 2001

Page-Walker Arts and History Center
Cary, North Carolina 2001

International Quilt  Market and Festival
 Houston, Texas 2001