Patchwork and quilting

I got bitten by the 'patchwork and quilting' bug a couple of years ago and now I usually have a few projects on the go at any time. I don't have enough time for all the lovely things I want to make, so I have to exert some discipline and not start new things until I finish some others.

'Dragon Princess' 2005

This is shaping up to be a happy week because I will put the binding on two quilts! That means that I can begin to think about my next project. In fact, my next project is all lined up because Blanche and I will go looking for fabric this morning! She would like a cosy lap quilt for her new home. I wonder what she will choose? There are so many things I'd like to try. I enjoy the learning curve of trying new things.

You can check out some of my quilts here at Flickr.

Tanzania has some wonderful fabrics. Women in traditional dress look magnificent in their distinctively patterned cottons. I often wonder about the different patchwork creations that could result from using these fabrics.

Here is a wonderful story about a group of women from the Weavers Mennonite Church in Virginia, USA, who made a quilt using African fabrics as a fund-raiser for a church in Arusha. Here is the quilt as a work in progress. The quilt sold for $US4,100 in a fund raising auction.

Mennonite traditional quilt patterns and tiny stitches emerge from Arusha traditional batik designs and bright dyes. American women from Weavers Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg, Va., join African women from Arusha Mennonite Church in Arusha, Tanzania, in a vision of sacrificial giving. On both continents, experience and energy sit side by side, visions mingle, and dreams stretch across an ocean. Strangers become sisters, sharing one faith, creating one quilt, contributing one gift.

When we reach out to help others, the pathway of giving and receiving enables us to be touched by higher levels of human potential. Perhaps it is God's work in the world.