Remember Netroots Nation in San Jose? Ann and I had a booth in the Exhibit Hall and had quilt patches to sign. Here you see them sewn together and quilted by hand. (At last! I finished it last night.) It is truly an artifact of that convention and bears the signatures of many familiar people (such as Sen. Merkley and lots and lots of Kossacks). It also has progressive messages written up one side and down the other, addressing everything from climate change to a need for equality among people. It’s pretty cool, if I do say so myself!
Initially, this quilt was intended to benefit Jeff Merkley’s re-election campaign through a drawing. But we did not have a space big enough to lay this 83” x 83” quilt — and happily, his campaign won handily without any help from our quilt. So we offered the quilt to Angela Marx to benefit her campaign for Congress, WA-03. We are so thrilled that she has accepted it — and very grateful to her sister for the space to, at last, lay out and baste the quilt.
The plan is to hand over the quilt to Angie this Thursday — we have a date with her to go “up the hill” to the VA Hospital that day. She will be photographing our delivery of quilts, teddy bears, and hand made hats and scarves to the volunteer office there (as part of the DK VA Hospital Service Project). But one little thing remains...I need to put a label on this big boy before washing it. And to do that, I need a title for it.
It took a community to make this quilt — why not ask the community to name it? Any inspirations and ideas are most welcome! Please leave them in the comments below.
Angie will be writing about the quilt drawing very soon — so keep an eye peeled for that, too!