I told you I'd seen some fun Barack Obama-inspired free-pieced letter quilts. I really have. First off is this wonderful quilt by Julie Suchomel who gave me permission to show you this photo of her and her quilt in front of the capitol building:
Bonnie Hunter visited Julie's guild on the 5th of November and really inspired her. When she and her husband decided to go to the presidential inauguration she thought of using the letters to make a quilt to commemorate the event.Julie explains: "I knew I wanted red, white and blue and it had to have 44 stars. There are 42 4" and 6" stars on the front and 2 8" ones on the back. All but a tiny bit of cream fabric is from my stash.... The red used for the date has dog paw prints in it in honor of the future first dog. The OBAMA letters are 6" and the rest are 4". "
Julie took the quilt to DC to get signatures, first at the Washington Historical Society at a quilt exhibition called Quilts for Obama: Celebrating the Inauguration of our 44th President, then at the "We are One" concert at the Lincoln Memorial, and at the inauguration itself. She has a special spot - the center of the O in Obama - reserved for the first family. She's going to send a photo, letter, and fabric to the White House. Fingers crossed they sign it for her!
Julie, thanks for letting me share this amazing quilt and I hope I paraphrased accurately.
SoScrappy made a fun Yes We Can quilt and I have to admit I really like the backwards a - it gives the quilt a great folk art look without being cute.
Hedgehog made a quilt for Change with lots of wonderful plaids.
Bumble Beans celebrated the inauguration with this bold, graphic quilt.
edited to add the following:
Kristin made a fun quilt with a flag and Obama's name.
Nancy Near Philadelphia has a friend who did a great job with a really scrappy quilt.
I hope you enjoyed these quilts. If you know of any others using the free-pieced letters, please do let me know!
Still finishing up my change - can't happen overnight, you know! ;) Thanks for the shout out!
ReplyDeleteHere are a few others I've seen:
http://knitonequilttoo.typepad.com/knit_one_quilt_too/2009/01/a-new-day.html
http://nancynearphiladelphia.blogspot.com/2008/11/will-you-look-at-what-turbo-has-done.html
Thanks Tonya & Hedgehog. Mine is still in the stage you see in the photo. Too much going on. I love the one that you have in your post. What an amazing thing to have all those signatures!
ReplyDeleteFantastic post ~ giant WOO HOO to those who have created these commemorative quilts!
ReplyDeleteTotally awesome now - priceless in a couple hundred years!
Great quilts! I especially love the symbolism in Julie's and the fantastic border on Nancy's!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for the mention -- so fun to see what others have done. Now I'm inspired to go add a border around mine.
ReplyDeleteAwesome!! Really terrific, and what keepsakes. If you google "Obama Craft Project" you'll see lots of Obama crafts. I haven't seen any free pieced quilts on it, but I only recently discovered it. It's fun to look through, so you might take a look, even searching for 'quilt' on the site.
ReplyDeleteOh these links are so wonderful! LOVE that first quilt pic. So very inspiring!
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Dionne
PS - posting a link to your website tomorrow.
Oh these are soo cool! I saw Julie's quilt in real life last night - it was even better in real life!
ReplyDeletethanks so much for sharing all of these...so inspiring! i may me making letters for a long time! i want one too.
ReplyDeleteI was privileged to see Julie's quilt as it was being created -- it's a wonderful souvenir of the event! (And Julie and her DH were within 200 feet of the podium, too.)
ReplyDelete