The Quarantine Quilt
These are unsettling and extremely difficult times.
We are quarantined across the globe. Those of us who are able to are staying separate and embracing isolation to save lives. We stay inside to support those in our society for whom it is difficult to social distance and those who are on the front line caring for people in need, nursing people who are sick, and providing essential services and provisions to us all.
Each of us is dealing with our own personal struggle and the world is grieving for those we have lost and for those who are suffering because of the chain of events the COVID-19 virus has sparked.
And once again we have seen the fashion industry turn its back on the artisans and the makers on which it is built, as many organisations still refuse to pay for their orders.
On the flip side, we have also seen community sewing initiatives spring up across the globe as volunteers come together to make PPE, showing solidarity through sewing. This initiative honours the craft and follows in a long tradition of collective quilt making as a marker, and as a way to chronicle important times.
We at Quarantine Quilt want to bring people together through the simple action of making something. Because a stitch can heal, and because creating is often healing on so many levels, especially when we are doing it as a united collective. So we have started a quilt.
Let’s hero the craft, hero garment workers and seamstresses and makers everywhere for clothing us, for keeping us warm and for constructing and piecing together fabric that shields and protects our bones, our fragile flesh and our limbs, not just during crisis but every day.
Wherever you are, if you are able to, we would love you to contribute to this quilt which belongs to all of us to record our thoughts and feelings, hopes, and even fears during this time. We want to know what’s been helping you through?
And we are taking comfort from seeing the diverse patches and their stories emerge. Each patch is as different as the people making them and we invite everyone from every situation, every age and place to join in with whatever scraps they have available to them. The story of your patch is yours to design – it can be joyful, hopeful, thoughtful, sorrowful or rageful – or all of those things simultaneously.
How to Get involved?
Why Get involved?
This quilt will honour all of our experiences during this time – our thoughts hopes and even fears. We want to use our craft as an expression to stand with the workers within the textiles industry, and the volunteer PPE hubs and acknowledge the bond that craft can be.
As a collective artwork comprised of many many narratives, every contributor is an essential part of the team. They join creatives Rachel Schofield Owen, Kathleen Nellis, Lydia Higginson and Emma Slade Edmondson. ‘We all work in different aspects of textiles, fashion, and costume, and whilst we have different backgrounds, we all share a commitment to stitch, fabric and clothing.’ Rachel Schofield Owen
We are learning so much through staying home and being more still. We are reminded who the key workers in our society really are and of how vastly peoples situations differ across our societies.
We will collect and configure your patches into a quilt, this quilt will be exhibited when we are able to gather. We cannot wait for that day.
Until then, please contribute your piece by photo. Along with your photo, please include details of yourself and the story behind your patch. Photographs should be taken directly from above, in the best light you can. And if you want to – maybe make a patch in the place of someone else who can’t.
If you can’t make a patch, but you are able to donate to our fund, we will be supporting Fashion Revolution, Trussell Trust and Women’s Aid through this initiative.
Please send in images either to quarantinequilt@gmail.com or DM us at @quarantine_quilt.
