the result of over 40 hours of toil and labor, sweating and bleeding fingers. The black stuff in the upper left corner has stars on it- I bought it a few days before Halloween, hoping I could use it for something. Obviously, not a great picture, I really need a shot of each block besides the whole piece, but something is better than nothing. Most of the fabric was lying around the house. I did the applique with wonder-under, to keep it stationary. This was one of those times I wish I had a serger- the machine applique would have gone better and looked nicer. The little people are all hand appliqued. The sun is machined, but the beads (if you can see them) in the center of the sun are all hand done. I put a knot every three beads, in case one got pulled off, they wouldn't all come off. Also not really visible, some of the quilting and applique was done with variegated thread, to mirror the rainbow children.
I hate describing what I intended it to represent, because every time I've shown it to people, I get a slightly different response every time. My grandmother said the people were "the children of the world", someone else said they were the freedom marchers. So, it's up to interpretation I guess. Obviously, the rainbow people could be any one, at any time, from any place. It is my hope that it's obvious the top right is "day" and the top left is "night", that the jumbled stippling in the bottom indicates chaos, and that there is no chaos in the upper panels. The people are separated from the new day above them because they are not there yet- the New Day is when all peoples are truly free, not just in word but in deed. It is for that same reason the people are not to the gold rectangle: We're not there yet. The observant (okay, any one who can actually see the quilt) will note that nothing grows from anger hate and fear, but peace, joy, mercy, tolerance, and hope. I was going for a sort of Faith Ringgold feel, sans painting- that would have required gessoing the muslin, and I have no gesso, and I couldn't find my acrylic paints. So I did what I could with the materials I had on hand. Which is obviously a ridiculous amount of fabric. I'm sure the prof has absolutely no idea who Faith Ringgold is.
Right now it is in the hands of my professor, and I am more than slightly concerned for it, as it was not packed for traveling very well, and he seemed to treat it as one of those "oh, that's nice dear but I'm not really impressed because it's * insert a word indicating inferiority *". face turns red with rage I worked just as hard as the person who turned in the song, the casting or the graphic design, just in a different way, so please don't treat it as a quaint, cutesy, folksey project. I refer you to Michael Kashey, an Edinboro resident who won the National Quilt competition in Paducha, Kentucky. I have no idea if the prof is going to pass the quilt on to the contest or not, but I got an A in the class, the requirement category the quilt filled was something like 15% of my grade. Hurray.
