Quilts for Black History Month

February is Black History Month in the USA. A lot of mention of the fabulous, talented Gee's Bend quilters in Alabama happens this month, too. Theirs is a style that is improvisational and their approach was to make do with what they had. Gee's Bend is literally the bend in the river in Alabama and was founded by a man with the last name of Gee! Pretty original name, right?

You can see this improvisational style in Mary Lee Bendolph's Strips and Strings quilt.

Mary Lee Bendolph's Strips and Strings quilt

Windham Fabrics negotiated with the quilters in Gee's Bend to recreate their quilts for today's quilters. Windham would produce about 2 dozen fabrics based on the 8 quilts they agreed upon and would create kits and patterns. They asked me to pattern these quilts! (How can you pattern an improvisational quilt?!!)

 YES - there were contracts all around! These quilters received generous royalties for this work. And, the bonus was that their work received wide recognition as the result of making these available to the quilting world.

Here is a photo of one of the kit bags:

Bag filled with fabric for a quilt

And the photo of the quilt using my pattern that gets attached to the outside. The multi-page pattern for this Housetop 4 Block quilt is inside.

Kit description and color photo of Housetop 4 Block quilt

And here's my version of Strips and Strings. It absolutely was the hardest one to pattern, but I did it and Mary Lee Bendolph was thrilled to see her quilt made available to others.

My interpretation of Strips and Strings: 50" x 75"

You can see the others in my Etsy shop, but I'll be back in another day or so with more of the story and show you a few other quilts. I also took my patterning a little further and developed a series of workshops that focused on improvisational piecing. I'll tell you a little about that, too.