Reconciliation. A challenging topic, to consider, to internalize, to navigate, to discuss, to find a call to action with respect. To live with in your personal history - this utterly flips on its head, what I thought I understood about our First Nations people. In Canada, we had a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" from 2008 through 2015. The commission collected testimony from more than 6,750 survivors and produced many recommendations. In 2021, the news brought the story of uncovering 215 little bodies in unmarked graves at a BC residential school. Only a few months later and we are beginning to see the devastation wrought against our indigenous peoples with thousands more uncovered graves. The witnesses during the Commission process shared their horrific experiences but there was little action. Even today, the true horror of this attempt at cultural genocide is pushed off the news pages by 12-second news bites.
My client, who has been creating quilts to provide funds donate to battle hunger in the world. With this quilt project, she is changing her focus, this cause very close to her heart. She has named it “Reconciliation”. It will be a fundraiser for Indigenous charities coming to her shop in September. The colour representing Reconciliation is Orange.
For this quilt, I captured more in-process images than usual. In the photo below, you can see the tablet (QMatic) attached to my longarm (Bernina Q24). This is the system that enables digital quilting - a robotic stitch-out of digital designs.
Here is the beginning of the stitch out. One pass is stitched at a time, the quilt is then rolled up and the next pass is set up for stitching.
Below, you can see I've turned the tablet away from the quilt, as the quilt is big enough that if I didn't, the sew head would bump into the tablet (nothing good comes from this!). For this quilt, I am floating the top. The backing is attached to the quilt frame by pinning the top of the backing to the take up roller and the bottom of the backing rail. I have basted the batting and top to the backing. The pink clamps keep even tension across the quilt, as do the clamps at the sides of the quilt.
This quilt is big enough (97" x 97") that the quilt is tucked over the bottom bar to keep it even and straight and keep it from wrinkling or the seams from stressing.
Below is the view of what you can see between the frame rails in each pass. In this quilt, so many glorious orange blocks! They are 2" blocks, a bit random but with a wonderful placement of light and dark patches. Some solids and lots of prints.
In the photo below, you can see the texture of the digital design (Bush Berry).
Isn't this just the most beautiful shaped leaf and swirly berry? My view of quilts is sometimes a little distorted as I am soooo close to the quilt. Those stitches are just so beautiful and the points so perfectly pointy! And since you're so close up, check out those seams!! Perfectly precise. This quilter has exquisite work.
This view is from the back of the machine - as the quilt gets more stitching, it is rolled onto the take up rail. Here you can see the beautiful back (Moda Compositions) and the plump leaves in the digital design.
I took the quilt out to hang it from the clothes line, to catch the design and all the beautiful orange blocks in the sunlight.
Below is another view of the backing and the beautiful stitches.
The thread we chose for this quilt is Glide "Buttermilk", another beautiful thread from Hab 'n Dash. This thread is soothing amidst the orange fabrics.
There are things that wear out, just like any machine. It was the end of the line for this glide cup foot. I did have another waiting in the wings, and another is on order from my wonderful Bernina dealer.
The quilt batting was Quilters Dream 100% cotton. There are 193,292 stitches in this 97" x 97" beauty.